A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless Page 4

  The safety of the team was very important to me. I was very grateful that no one had gotten hurt so far (and thankfully never did). We always reminded one another to be cautious if someone on the team got too relaxed and less alert (usually me). It was also risky business to take the uninitiated out with us, and we avoided it most of the time. We worked in dangerous areas, serving unpredictable people. Lack of awareness, a moment’s hesitation, stopping to ask “why” instead of getting out fast if we had to, could put all of us at risk, and it was more comfortable to work with people who knew what they were doing. And we, as a team, were slowly gaining experience and becoming more savvy.

  Among the few who joined us to lend a spare pair of hands hauling bags out of the van was a dear friend, Michael, who is a person of deep religious leanings. Like Jane and John, he had worked for many years with people with AIDS, through hospice. And after his work with us, he went to the Middle East, Liberia, and South America as a missionary. He was wonderful doing outreach on the streets and became a frequent member of our team. As we began to serve more people, our operation went more smoothly if there were twelve or thirteen of us. It distributed the work better and kept us safer, so we were willing to take one or two additional people with us, if they seemed suitable.

  Eleven on the team were barely enough and more than thirteen were too many. But adding the wrong “guest worker” was more headache than it was worth. Although our nighttime activities sounded appealing to compassionate people, coming face-to-face with the hard physical work of unloading the vans, carrying the supplies, and confronting the dangers on the streets and miserable conditions in bad weather scared most people off, and they didn’t sign up again. It was never what they expected and was always hard to predict or describe beforehand—and some nights were tougher than others. The risks we faced, became used to, and took as commonplace were frightening to people who had never been out there before. For some it was just too much. Others found it remarkable, but had no desire to join us again. We always understood and were grateful for their help, even once.

  When we began our work, we used two vans and eventually added Nick’s as a third. Seeing his van always gave me the comforting sensation that Nick was with us. And halfway through the night, we would reload the third van (which left us short-handed temporarily and was a little dicey for the rest of us). But we delivered four vanloads of goods to the streets, and the system of reloading worked. Using trucks would have been too cumbersome. And four vanloads of goods were all we could afford. If we had had the funds to do it, we could have given away twice as much—the need was always there.

  As our outreach team grew in the beginning, we formed a group of volunteers to sort and pack the supplies. It took two or three weekends to do it, with Jane overseeing and ordering the supplies. With time, we became increasingly organized.

  We left for our “missions” shortly after six o’clock at night, with the vans loaded. We realized that going at night made the most sense, because in the daytime people on the streets roam around, pushing carts and wandering. It was easier to locate them once they settled down for the night, so we went out after dark, and it was safer for us to go out when we were less visible.

  I always prayed silently for the safety of everyone involved. Despite my enthusiasm and commitment to the idea, I was well aware, as we all were, that there were dangers on the streets, and obvious risks. We had no set plan as to how to deal with those dangers, but two things gave me the illusion that we were safe. One was that the idea had come to me in church. How could anything happen to us if we were sent out there to do God’s work? I mentioned this to a priest once, who was quick to respond that the church does not canonize the foolish. Good point. And it took me a while to realize that getting the idea in church did not guarantee our safe passage on the streets, not by any means. We had some close calls over the years. You have to watch your back, be smart, alert, and sometimes get out of the way fast.

  I was reassured by the presence of four off-duty police who were part of our group. But even that didn’t guarantee that we would have no mishaps, I realized later, because we spread out, we found ourselves at times alone with groups of homeless people around us in dangerous neighborhoods and situations, and bad things can happen fast. But certainly having police officers with us helped, and I might not have been brave enough to do it otherwise long-term. I was concerned with the well-being of everyone on the team. Our police officers in the group never had to put their professional skills to use, but their awareness, caution, instincts, and expertise at handling difficult situations saved us more than once, and probably avoided greater problems.

  More than once, as we set out for the night’s work, I remembered a film I had seen as a child about bullfighters, and how they prayed before going into the ring. Strangely, I felt like that, not sure what we’d be facing, but praying that everyone would come back unhurt and alive. I felt very responsible for the team. Going to mass before our nights on the streets became a ritual for me, as well as lighting candles for everyone working. No matter how comfortable I got out there, I never lost sight of the risks or the potential dangers of what we were doing, and that we were on the streets with the grace of God, and hopefully doing His work as best we could.

  No one ever had time to eat before we took off in the vans, so someone had once thought to bring a big box of doughnuts. They became the source of many jokes over the years, but they actually sustained us through the night. Later, trying to add a more “upscale” note, Bob brought a box of almond croissants. These two items became traditions on our trips. Unfortunately, both boxes always sat next to me in the van, and I ate far too many of them every time, but they really hit the spot! It was a crazy diet for nights when we needed a lot of energy, but it was all any of us ever ate on those nights, along with occasional offerings of popcorn from Jill. Most of the time, we were too excited, and running on too much adrenaline, to eat. If thirsty, we drank soda or water. We never stopped for coffee, even when we were cold. We didn’t want to slow down, stop, or waste time. We had better things to do.

  Each time we did outreach, we headed south, three vans in convoy, past a small park where homeless people camp on the grass, even in cold weather. There was no shelter there, but there was a lot of space, and a church across the street, with a handful of people in the doorway. This became our traditional first stop of the night, and most of the time, with rare exceptions, we did a lot of “business” there. We were still giving away loose goods in the beginning, and Jane had organized them well, each size in separate boxes, each item readily available, and one of the vans with only sleeping bags. With three sizes of jackets for men and two for women, my first question as I walked up to people, after telling them we had things for them, was “Excuse me, sir, are you a large or an extra large?” The men stared at me as though I was crazy, and the team made fun of me. (After a while, I could pretty much eyeball our clients and guess the right size.) There was a lot of teasing among the team about our “winter line” as opposed to our “spring line,” and if someone would be coming out to do alterations later. It kept the mood light in the early part of the evening, when we were able to give people items that really fit in the correct size.

  With off-duty cops on board, we were braver about venturing into some nasty neighborhoods that night, and thereafter. We felt a confidence that maybe we shouldn’t have, but we wanted to be where we were needed most. And the policemen added fearlessness. They knew what they were doing and what not to confront. We made some early safety rules, and set some boundaries about neighborhoods. There were so many homeless people in the city that there were a lot of options. We decided to avoid the Panhandle area of Garden Gate Park, near the once-famous Haight-Ashbury, because there were mostly transient young people there, almost all of whom were high on drugs, and whose homelessness often stemmed from that. We wanted to get to the hardcore homeless at the bottom of the barrel, where no one else would go, not the “cream” at the top.

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bsp; Our fear was that in the Panhandle, the kids would be most likely to sell what we gave them, for more drugs, which seemed to defeat our purpose. There were also parts of the park where our police teammates felt it was just too dangerous for us to go, where we would have to climb through bushes in the dark and were too likely to get attacked. Likewise, we made Hunter’s Point off limits, where street violence was extreme and where shootings occurred too frequently for our safety. We eliminated another area where dirty needles were the weapon of choice. And the police on our team said that if we worked in the Tenderloin, we were likely to inadvertently interrupt the flow of business in drug traffic, and we were liable to get killed. Sixth Street was the hotbed of drug deals and also the scene of frequent shootings, and Bob and Randy said that we were almost certain to get shot there, so that was out.

  But in spite of those reasonable limitations, that still left huge parts of the city, mostly south of Market Street, where we would find countless homeless people. It was a big area, and those still relatively dangerous regions kept us busy all night. And admittedly now and then we strayed into places we shouldn’t have, where we’d promised not to go, but we tried not to stay long and moved on as fast as was practical. Bob and Randy advised us that wherever we went, the goal was to get in and out fast, not to give people too much time to think about it or attack us if we were in a tight situation in a tough neighborhood. In the gentler places, we could stay longer, but they still urged us to move quickly. It’s a policy we stuck with and that always worked well for us, even when we made mistakes and wound up where we shouldn’t. Moving at high speeds served us well every time. We didn’t need to linger, we gave what we had and got out. We were there to get a job done, not hang out.

  Another agreement we made early on was what to do if someone tried to hijack the van. Many people living on the streets have weapons. Some have guns, but knives were more current, and getting stabbed was a real possibility for us, working at close range. More than once I asked myself what I was doing. I am a single mother of eight children who need me. Risking getting killed on the streets wasn’t sensible, yet I had an overwhelming need to continue what I’d started, as did the others. But I had a strong sense of responsibility to the rest of the team too. I worried a lot about them getting hurt, and we all kept a watchful eye and tried to cover each other’s backs whenever we could. It wasn’t always possible, but at least we tried. Despite that, we split up at times or found ourselves alone, surrounded by sometimes hostile homeless men. But we were both sensible and lucky, and I’m deeply grateful that none of us ever got hurt.

  We agreed that if anyone ever attacked us for the vans or what was in them, we would give up the vehicles immediately. There was no point dying for a van full of sleeping bags. So we would hand over the keys with no argument, no questions asked. It never happened, fortunately, but at least we were all clear on our priorities and had a plan, if things went wrong.

  We tried other safety measures over the years, none of which really worked. A few years into it, we decided to add two-way radios, since we so often split up and strayed from each other when we got busy. We tried to stay in pairs but often got spread out. There were always a few of us at the vans, handing things out, but most of the others wandered off to round people up, and make sure we found everyone we had gone there to find, in hidden doorways, in dark alleys, or under freeway ramps. Being able to communicate by radio in the event of danger or injury, or just to say how many people were in a camp around the corner, would have helped us out a lot and made us both safer and more efficient. The first time the people on the streets saw us with radios, they ran like mice: They thought we were all cops. I don’t think we used the radios, in all, for more than an hour, if that. Bad idea. Forget that. What we eventually settled on as our only safety device were whistles, worn around our necks to use in case of emergency, which was a sensible idea. We never had to use them. The team, however, did use theirs at every opportunity—every time I reached into the doughnut box. It did not deter me, unfortunately. I managed to scarf down two or three doughnuts every time we went out. I ignored the whistles and figured the doughnuts were worth it! And I got hungry jumping out of the van all night. So I endured the humiliation of them whistling at me, and ate another doughnut.

  A new element that the two police officers had added on their first trip was the addition of a greeting, “Yo!” I don’t know if it’s a cop thing, a guy thing, or a street thing, but their form of greeting as we approached people was “Yo!” A very loud “Yo!,” in fact. One of our cautions was not to startle people. People on the streets are wary and sometimes frightened. They live in danger, and mental illness is no stranger on the streets. You don’t want to tiptoe up on people discreetly and scare them to death at close range, or wake them out of a sound sleep by frightening them. Their reaction could have been dangerous. So we gave lots of warning that we were approaching, so people had time to evaluate the situation and feel comfortable with it—or, rarely, tell us not to, if they didn’t want us around. They had that right. It was their space, not ours. And Bob and Randy’s “Yo!” definitely did the job of warning people when we approached. I have one of those mouse voices that even when I think I’m shouting, people say “What?” And when I’m talking normally, no one can hear me. I am painfully shy in real life, and have a very soft voice. My first “Yo!” was beyond pathetic. It was a baby whisper that sounded like half of “yoyo,” said by a six-year-old. It took me a while to grow my “Yo” into something impressive. By now I have a “Yo,” I am proud to say, that could knock you flat on your ass.

  “Yo!” is a greeting familiar to people on the street, and they use it to catch your attention and stop you in your tracks.

  We were getting back into the van on our first night out as a team, after one of our stops, when a man came running down the street as fast as he could, to stop us before we left. I saw him coming from the distance, desperate to get what we had to give. Into the night, in our direction, he shouted, “Yo! Angel!” We waited for him, and I was startled by what he’d said. He thanked us profusely for what we were doing, and said we must be angels coming to help others. We gave him what he needed, and off he went, leaving with us the gift of our name, as a group. We called our outreach team thereafter “Yo! Angel!”

  Another extraordinary thing happened to us that night. We were cruising along slowly beneath an underpass, looking for people sleeping there, and there were a lot of them. Suddenly on a support post for the underpass, we saw a large chalk drawing. It stopped us all. It was a beautiful painting of a boy, done in pastel colors, and he had wings. There was our angel. A sign, after we had just been called that, deservedly or not. But what stopped me and mesmerized me, as tears sprang to my eyes, was that the boy in the lovely angel drawing looked just like my son Nick. He was the angel in our midst. John and Jane returned days later to take a photograph of it, which they had put on a sweatshirt for me, as a gift. I treasure it still. It was the perfect sign for our first night together as a team, the night Yo! Angel! was born.

  We became Yo! Angel! that night, and so did the foundation I founded years later, to help us manage our finances and make the most of every dollar we spent on the streets. Jane saw to it that we had a sign that said “Protected by angels” hanging from the rearview mirror, and various little angel mascots. The occasionally outrageous jokes we told between stops did not qualify us as angels, but they kept our spirits up, and we all liked the idea of angels as our theme.

  Although our distribution went fairly smoothly, it was nonetheless complicated fishing things out of the van, making sure everyone had one of each item: sleeping bag, jacket, gloves, hat, socks. We had added a wool beanie, which was useful on cold nights on the streets. I wore one myself. Sometimes people wanted two pairs of socks, or a jacket for an absent husband or girlfriend. We gave them what they wanted, but running the supplies out of the back of the van was like a discount store on the day of a half-price sale. We did a lot of business quickly,
and Jane had to stay on her toes to keep the rest of us from turning our supplies into a junk heap for her to deal with. She was always a good sport about the mess we made as we handed things out at a fast pace, and people were patient as they waited for us to turn back to them with our arms full of things they needed. It was only the beginning for us, and we still had a lot to learn about what was needed and what worked.

  In the spirit of that innocence and newness, we managed to drive headfirst into a one-way dead-end alley south of Market Street, where we saw two or three people asleep in doorways. It looked like an easy stop to us, and no big deal. But once we were deep into the alley, with another van behind us and no way out except to back up, about forty young men poured out from doorways and nooks and crannies where we hadn’t seen them as we drove in. They were a rough crowd, and just about all of them looked high on drugs. The alley was closer than we should have been to the very dangerous Sixth Street, where we had agreed not to go. The alley had seemed okay. It wasn’t, and we found ourselves instantly surrounded and outnumbered by a large group of very angry-looking young men, who began jostling each other and us, afraid that we wouldn’t have enough for all of them. We were hugely outnumbered, three or four to one. They were pushing, shoving, and shouting, and in our nervousness, one of us accidentally locked the van with the keys in it, so we were stuck on the street with the men, locked out of our van. I took one look at the situation, and religious or not, I said the only thing one could in that situation, which didn’t look good to any of us. I muttered, “Oh shit!” In all honesty, I figured we were going to be killed.