While I’m waiting for W. to drop a bed for me, a tall thin man with a navy suit of luggage arrives. From the pocket of his beige coat he pulls out a minor ream of important looking documents, wrapped carefully in plastic bags. He says he’s a refugee, pointing to a certain paper among many.

W. holds it up, examining the characters. “Oh, you’re from China,” he says, asking if he’s stayed here before. The man emphatically confirms this, but his English is almost non-existent and there’s something strained about his breathing, making his words even more difficult to follow. After several minutes of searching W. can’t find him in the system. How he determines this, I don’t know, since the man clearly doesn’t have a social security number. W. tells him to go sit down and we both take seats next to a guy who’s been busted trying to sneak a fifth of vodka past the security guard. He didn’t show up for curfew last night, either, so he’s lost his bed and they haven’t decided what to do with him yet, except chide him for being back on the booze. He doesn’t seem especially drunk, but a few minutes later he falls off his chair. He gets up and walks out. No one stops him.

I try to talk to the refugee, who says he’s Thai, that he just arrived here this past week. That’s about all I can get straight before W. sets me up with bed #340. Though he’s doling out blankets and towels to the men coming through, he tells me the women’s room is downstairs and someone there will help me out.


My bunk at MSC

In the basement of the building I wander past a small cafeteria and a laundry, until I find the women’s facilities – a large, low-ceilinged room with 45 beds. Another 295 men sleep upstairs. MSC is one of the larger facilities, and though the building is owned by the city the shelter is managed by the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

About half a dozen women and a pitbull wearing a fashionable, hibiscus-printed collar are sprawled out on three vinyl couches set into a U around a TV. American Idol is on. Nobody pays any attention to me as I walk among the beds, looking for #340. Mostly wooden bunks, they look identical to the ones in my college dorm room, only far, far more rickety. My bed shakes and sways, but holds up. At least there’s a railing on the top bunk. Many of them are empty, many are already occupied with women sleeping, reading, talking on their cell phones. Some of the beds seem more fully owned than others, with real sheets, pillows, blankets, stacks of books, stuffed animals, clothing, and toiletry kits. Others are almost empty, just a body rolled up in a grey wool blanket.

I still haven’t figured out who’s in charge down here, if anyone. I find a large bin of wool blankets and small towels and claim one of each. The blanket doesn’t quite cover the thin green vinyl mat on my bunk, and the towel will barely cover my ass, but I don’t have a choice. There are drawers beneath the bunks, but it’s bring your own lock and I don’t have one. I find I can snug my pack down beside the foot of the mattress and it won’t fall off. Good enough, but I wonder if it’ll be torn into as soon as I turn my back. I don’t really care – I’ve brought nothing of significant worth except a journal, camera, phone, and wallet, which are all tucked into the inner pockets of my vest. I won’t let that get too far away from me.

MSC's cafeteria, closed for the night

I’m hungry. W had been dishing out sandwiches and little baggies of tortilla chips, but I didn’t get any so I go see what it takes. Apparently, just asking. I come back downstairs, take a seat at a table near the tv and start to eat. Yellow cheese and mystery meat on cheap, airy bread. A woman sitting on the couch tells me I can’t eat there, and if I do they’ll all get in trouble. I apologize and start to get up, unsure where to go. A small woman jumps to my side and says I can eat at the other table, escorting me over toward the doorway. “You got any extra?” she asks.

I hand her one of my sandwiches.

“Is it really extra?” I have a hard time convincing her it is.

She chips in half a bag of Famous Amos cookies and while we eat, tells me a long, convoluted story about losing her SRO in the Mission. R. also says she has an inheritance waiting for her in New York, she’s just not sure if she’s ready for it yet. She looks me in the eye over the top of her gold-rimmed bifocals and explains how she’s going to take the Amtrak across the country, reciting several precise prices for the 2 and 3 week passes. She’s a senior, so it’s even cheaper.

She seems slightly insane, and I guess I expected to find people like her – between 25 and 50 percent of San Francisco’s homeless have mental health issues. It makes me think about the other things I expected and I look around the room some more.

Nobody really looks “homeless” and I wonder if someone were given a photograph of the room and asked to identify it, what they would say. Minimum security prison? Retreat? Mental hospital? Rehab? Missionary? Some sort of summer camp for grown ups? Where else do 50 women bunk up, night after night, in modern day America?

A woman pads around in a purple robe and slippers, talking on her cell phone. Another is giving herself a manicure on the top bunk. There’s a steady flow in and out of the bathroom, of women showering, brushing teeth, putting the day to bed. People come in from smoking outside.

Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, transgender, overweight, underweight, clean, dirty, whacked out and straight as an arrow. We’re all here. There are women my age, some younger, some much, much older. I watch one, at least my mother’s age, trying to get up into her top bunk and imagine my mom attempting it.

The bathrooms aren’t overtly filthy, but they’re not really clean either. Soap, but no paper towels or hand dryers and women dab at their hands with wads of toilet paper. There are tampons out on a shelf and toilet paper in most of the stalls. Right before bed I’m standing in front of the sink brushing my teeth while next to me a woman carefully washes her face with thick dollops of Noxzema. We catch eyes in the mirror and hold them, a long look quivering between us as if we’re both asking, What are you doing here?

Throughout the night we are woken often. The first time, a male supervisor walks up to a bunk and tells the woman sleeping to get up. “Just get up and come upstairs,” he says to her when she asks why. She seems confused and waits until he turns his back before she gets up and puts a shirt on over the bra she’s wearing. She follows him upstairs, returns a few minutes later, grumbling to herself. I can’t quite tell what happened, but I think it has something to do with an elderly woman a couple bunks down from me.

A few minutes later the elderly woman gets up, tucks her handbag over her pajamaed shoulder and goes upstairs. This time W. comes down and warns us all: “Don’t mess with no senior lady,” he says, walking among the bunks, apprising the bodies resting under the thin wool blankets. “Don’t mess with no senior lady,” he repeats. A few anonymous grumbles emit from darkened corners.

We’re woken up three other times. Someone else in a bunk near me is woken up and ordered to go upstairs. I strain to listen, but can’t tell why and it’s a while before she returns. It freaks me out a little – like I could be ordered out at any moment if they decide I don’t belong here.

Lights come on for a bed check around 11, when they come through and count the empties and no-shows. They’re on again an hour later to purge a bunk of someone’s stuff when the true occupant arrives late. The fourth or fifth time this happens, one of the staffers says, “Man on the floor,” as he starts walking through, and it was only then that I learned there might be a policy or rule about men coming into the women’s area without announcing themselves.

DAY TWO – Thursday, January 17, 2008
MSC South

The lights come on at 6 a.m. So does the TV. Loud. ABC News. Women are up and talking immediately. I lay there, tired, having spent the last couple hours listening to a fitful cougher.

All the bathroom stalls are full, but the showers are empty. I decide to brave it. R. said they were pretty good. The tiled floor and walls are pretty clean. Large rubber mats hang from the wall, and I lift one and lay it down. They’re the kind you see in restaurant kitchens, and I remember my long lost days as a dishwasher, the end of the night ritual of dragging them out into the parking lot to be hosed down. And like a hose, only cold water pours from the showerhead for a few minutes. I stand there shivering, wondering if this is it. I’ve read shelter reports where access to hot water has been a problem. I fiddle with the tap and realize some plumber put it on backwards and cold is hot, hot is cold.

While I’m soaping up with the caustic “hair and body” blend they have in a dispenser mounted on the wall, someone comes in says, “Last call for breakfast.” Already? I think.

Two of the limpest, most uninspiring hot dogs accompany scrambled eggs, potatoes, a literal crust of bread, and a small pouch of “Fruit Gushers,” which remind me of a grade school snack except they’re full of sugar and were considered “treats” when I was a kid. Coffee, and the server looks at me like I’m crazy when I ask if there’s tea. There’s milk and water in large coolers, unlabeled and identified by the spillage from the spout. The milk is from a mix.

Looking at the tray of food is the first time I feel really ashamed. This is the best San Francisco can offer? Later, I read a report from MSC that states they spend 38 cents per person per meal. They’re wasting their money: I watch several women take a few half-hearted bites and toss the rest out.

Guidelines for good eating, posted at MSC, but not really followed

Hanging in the entrance of the cafeteria are two tattered yellow posters, in English and Spanish, outlining which foods are good and bad. First on the good list: fruits and vegetables. Haven’t seen a single one yet. Bad foods to eat: fatty meats. Hmm, hot dogs and mystery pork product in last night’s sandwiches. We’re batting 0 and 2 here. The word irony comes to mind, but what I really feel is insulted. Someone hung those flyers. Somebody around here knows better. If the point of putting them up is to educate, you have to wonder who they’re reaching out to – the servers, or the diners who have no control over what’s put on the trays in front of them.

After breakfast women flock into the bathroom to primp, and the air is stuffy with steam, perfume, and shit. Still no hand towels.

I overhear the elderly woman from last night talking to a friend about what happened. Apparently the other woman walked by her bunk and said, “I’m gonna kick your ass. Fuck you bitch.” So she went upstairs and told the supervisor, hence the lights on, scolding from W., etc. It’s the kind of thing that reminds me of being in school, where not everyone gets along and we all have to hear about it, all get punished.

She goes on complaining about conditions, says there’s going to be a meeting next week and she’s thinking about going. “Why doesn’t someone go down to City Hall and tell it like it really is?” she wonders aloud. It’s unclear if she knows that there are some people working to improve the quality of shelter life.

Good Morning America is on, and since I don’t have to be at work for three hours and haven’t seen Diane Sawyer since about 1994, I flop down on one of the couches to watch. We’re waiting for a piece on a mysterious skin disease to queue up (no shortage of those here – I’ve already seen some gruesome open wound-tending) when the pipes by the door begin to drip a steady stream of water. A client jumps up and pushes a nearby trashcan under the leak. The shelter monitor comes down, grabs an armful of the blankets we’ve been sleeping on and throws them onto the wet floor, pushing them around with her feet. She goes upstairs to get help. The fast-acting client pulls out the caution wet floor sign, and pulls the table away from the leak, wiping it down with a towel and some hand sanitizer. The pipes are all labeled “domestic hot water”, but it seems like the leak is coming through the fluorescent light fixture, and from other, unlabeled pipes. The shelter monitor says she thinks it’s clogged pipes from the upstairs bathroom.

Another leak springs in among the beds and the shelter monitor tries to wake a woman sleeping in the nearby bed to tell her she might get wet, but she doesn’t budge. Her pitbull is curled up in the bed with her.

Later another client tells me a pipe broke, but we never really find out what it was. The janitor arrives and replaces the trashcan with the larger laundry bin that holds our blankets and towels.

The incident doesn’t seem to perturb the residents much, except a woman sitting by me is mildly pissed: we’ve missed the spot on the mysterious skin disease.

Upstairs, I notice the wipe board reads “Breakfast: Hot dogs, scrambled eggs, rice bagles [sp], apples, oranges, coffee, water, milk.” Someone just walking in without eating were would presume we actually got fruit this morning, but it’s not true.

The daytime staff seem a little more on it than the night time folks. I talk to J. about when I have to be back tonight and what to do with my stuff. I don’t have a lock, so I can’t leave it in the drawer or it will get stolen. I ask if there’s any kind of bag check or storage for the day while I’m at work. I’m told to go to 150 Otis. This is several blocks away, and not in the direction of my office. It doesn’t matter – there’s still no place here for my stuff. I decide to shoulder it to work.

Returning that night, I’m 40 minutes late for curfew, but they let me in. I missed dinner, but they hand me two unwrapped ham and cheese sandwiches on cheap bread.

I spend the evening down in the laundry area, discussing Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration with a chef for Google who’s staying here for a few days. Newsom doesn’t get it, he says. Care not Cash doesn’t work and never will. People gotta have money and if you don’t give it to them, they’ll find a way to get it. Crime goes up. They rob, hustle, steal, sell drugs, sell food stamps. Everyone has a hustle – his is laying low in a $200/week hotel while he searches for a real place to live. He had the day off and gave it a look, but a Craigslist search for “studio, $500-1000” in San Francisco turned up nothing.

He stresses that not everyone’s the same but everyone gets lumped together in the shelters. There are lots of guys like him -- he knows them, he sees them trying to make the system work for them. They just need a little bit more than what they’re getting. He doesn’t like the idea of getting handouts – he was raised by an independent mother that spurned welfare -- but he thinks people should get real cash in a city that has such an expensive cost of living. They need to earn it, though – the city could set goals for them to meet or make them work a few hours everyday for the city and then give them money. They may still do drugs, but they’ll do them anyway until they figure out some other way to deal with life. Just because you take the money away doesn’t end the drugs.

It’s worse than it was 10 years ago when he moved here. He’s been using the shelters off and on over that time. He tells me to look at the numbers of people signing up for programs compared to the crime rates. People are starting to avoid the system because it doesn’t work for them and are just turning to crime, breaking into cars, and selling drugs.

We bring another guy into the conversation who’s been sitting in the corner reading a paperback, waiting for the dryer. He takes off his glasses, folds them carefully and lays them on top of his book before he responds. “I think some people need to get their asses kicked and get to work.” Paid rent and $29 is okay, but people need to work.

Both he and Chef are incensed about the recent SF Chronicle article reporting on the pay raises the Mayor gave his staff. They point out the budget cuts he needs to make and how they always go after social services first. “Is that cutting back, or is that stealing?” the reader asks before picking up his book and leaving.

When he’s gone, Chef tells me the guy does crack, but “works” for the shelter so they let him stay here. He’s not getting paid or they wouldn’t let him stay here.

They both told me they think MSC is the best shelter. Chef won’t stay anywhere else.

Women nod recognition to me tonight when I come in. One asks if I work here because “I look normal.”

We’re only woken up a couple times tonight – once, for a bed check and I notice that, like last night, there are about 10-12 empty bunks. When the lights come on at 6, I’m surprised to find I’ve actually slept a little.

Breakfast is another surprise: half of a grapefruit graces the tray. Finally, a piece of fruit. It’s accompanied by eggs mixed with hamburger, a very stale roll, a bowl of grits, and some more Fruit Gushers. The woman seated across from me offers me her serving of eggs – she’s vegetarian. I ask if they ever have options for her. She says sometimes at dinner, but not always. We make fun of the Fruit Gushers. She calls them “chemical balls.”

I talk to a staffer as I’m leaving. She tells me I can make a reservation for another night, but not for here. When I ask why not, she says, with a wry smile, “Because city bureaucracy will not allow us,” and explains that, because a lot of people want to stay at MSC it would be difficult to fight off favoritism. That might be true, she admits, but we’d do our best.

It’s clear she thinks the system doesn’t work for people and, indeed, she’s surrounded by clients with requests she can’t honor: one man wants a respite bed, but he can’t sign up for one here or just go to a respite place – he has to go to a resource center first. Someone else asks to make a reservation, but there are no empty beds in the entire system. It’s 8:30 a.m. I’d like a bed for tonight, too, but I’m told to check back later.

“But I have to go to work?”

The kind staffer gives me a sheet listing all sorts of resources – it’s different than the one I got from the cops. Together, we figure out that the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center is the closest one to my office. I ask what will happen if I just show up at a shelter, like I did to get into here. She counsels me very strongly not to do that.

It’s such a complicated system. I can’t imagine trying to figure it out if I were sick, mentally ill, coming down off a high, or in any way truly challenged, let alone hungover or a little off my game. Stability is ephemeral, and if you slip a little you’re back at square one. Nothing can be tailored for you unless you figure out a way to game the system. I can understand why bribes might be a problem.

I don’t want to carry my stuff to work with me today, and again, I’m told to take it to 150 Otis. It takes me a little under an hour to walk there from MSC. Two people greet me at the desk, and they’re friendly, but what I want isn’t possible -- they only do 6-month storage. You’re allowed to bring in up to 2 bags, but you can only access them once a day, Monday thru Friday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. They’re closed holidays, including this Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Even if I checked in my bag, I couldn’t access it again today. And if I remove it entirely, I lose my spot and can’t use 150 Otis for storage again for 90 days. There is no temporary or daytime storage. I ask about what you can check here – only bags and shoes. No bikes, electronics, shopping carts. This isn’t going to work for me at all and I imagine it only works for a small percentage of people, considering all the regulations.

I notice a roomful of cots to the right and ask if people sleep here, too. “Not anymore. The Mayor closed it down,” one tells me. It used to be a men-only winter shelter, but when the Golden Gate Park sweeps started 59 people were brought here. They’ve been moved into housing and now the shelter’s closed for three months. I look at the grey metal bed frames, stripped bare. “Why?” I ask. They have no idea.


Possessions parked outside 150 Otis: people are only allowed to check two bags.

DAY 3 – January 18, 2008
Episcopal Sanctuary, 201 8th Street

After my visit to 150 Otis, I decide to go try to get a reservation, even though it will make me late for work. I walk down to the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center on Capp Street, by the Uptown bar. It’s about 11 a.m. and there’s no line at the desk. A woman types in my “last four” and brings up my profile. I still haven’t gotten my TB test, she warns me. She pulls out a camera on a small tripod and tells me she needs to take my picture.

“Why?” I ask.

She explains that this is how they confirm identities – sometimes people who’ve been kicked out of shelters use the social security numbers of other clients to get back in or access services they’re otherwise not allowed.

I don’t like the idea of them having my picture. She’s not sure if it’s mandatory, so she makes a phone call. It’s not. We move on.

Later, Dave Curto, the contract compliance officer for the Human Services Agency, tells me they used to scan fingerprints to confirm identities. At one time they were able to compare data with other counties and came across the same people accessing welfare benefits all over the Bay Area. Eventually, the technology needed an upgrade and civil rights activists lobbied to discard the system entirely. Now they just do photos.

The resource center receptionist identifies empty spots at Episcopal Sanctuary. “Do you want a bed just for tonight or seven days?”

I sign up for a week. She prints out the reservation and writes down the address to the shelter and tells me curfew is at 6. I’m worried I can’t get there from work by then and she asks what time I think I can make it.

7:30, I guess, and she types that into the computer. I now have a late pass. That was easy.

I ask her a bunch of questions about what kinds of services they have here. She’s very helpful and patient, researching answers or making calls to people who can field questions that she can’t.

The room is busy, with about 50 men, mostly Latino, coming and going, checking their things in lockers, and resting on chairs in the center of the room. The walls are posted with all sorts of information and a wipeboard outlines the day’s schedule of activities – doctors, specialists, and meetings that are available. Overall, it’s a very positive experience.

After work I take a bus to Sanctuary, arriving at 7:15. The men are finishing dinner in the cafeteria. I ask if it’s too late to get a meal, and M., the shelter monitor at the front desk tells me he’ll check and see if there’s any extra. The women’s quarters are directly off the lobby and I find my bunk easily and throw down my bag, then wander around, trying to get a feel for the place.

Many women are already curled up in bed, reading. It’s very quiet, with light conversation here and there. A few are watching tv in a separate room that looks like it serves as a chapel, too. The women’s shelter monitor is easy to identify – she’s sitting behind a table of stacked blankets. She gives me one and lets me know I can have a towel when I’m ready to take a shower. An industrial roll of toilet paper, toilet seat covers, and a basket of mini bars of soap is also set out. Lots of information – for jobs, housing, rules of the shelter – are posted on the walls.

M. tracks me down and hands me a warm paper plate wrapped in Saran. I see several others on a tray and he tells me they save them for some regulars who come in late from work or appointments. I ask where I can sit down to eat and he suggests the tv room. In there I find a pew-like bench and unwrap my meal – two breaded fish patties (It’s Friday!), corn, macaroni, two slices of decent whole grain bread, and a strange, disgusting medley of vegetables. It’s not bad, and it feels good to eat hot food.

The woman sleeping on the bunk underneath me is happy to hear I’ll be around for a week – it’s been a lot of come and go above her lately. She just returned from a stroll around the block with her husband, who stays in the men’s quarters. They’ve only been married for a couple of months and hoping to be out of the shelter by March. No, there’s nowhere for them to stay together. She’s not working – an injured leg, and they’re still determining if she’s eligible for disability.

I ask the shelter monitor some more questions. She’s nice enough, but “no” is the answer to most of them – no, I can’t plug in my cell phone. No, they don’t rent or sell locks for the drawers where you can put your stuff. No, I can’t have a late pass for tomorrow until I get a 90-day bed. No, I can’t have a 90-day bed: I have to work that out with my case manager. I tell her I have an all-day conference tomorrow and can’t get back here by 6 p.m. for curfew. I still can’t have a late pass.

Lights out isn’t until midnight – three hours from now, but I climb up into my bunk and lay down with a book.

I watch a woman arrive, set her bag and jacket on a neatly made bed and lean down to greet the woman in the next bed with a “Hey, momma,” and a kiss on the forehead. She checks in with another woman, too. She returns from the bathroom a matching pajama set, and sits down on her bed with a skein of yarn and a crochet hook.

Except for the snoring, it’s very quiet, almost peaceful. It’s strange to think of this as an “emergency” shelter. These women don’t seem in a state of emergency. It’s more like the waiting area in an airport or bus terminal – the quiet, patient, desperation of people, surrounded by their possessions, waiting for the way out.

A young woman arrives and regards the bunk beds beside me. She makes a move toward the bottom one, but someone else tells her it’s taken. She puts her bag on the top. I recognize her from MSC and say hi. She eyes the edge of the bunk warily. “I’m so afraid I’m going to fall out,” she says. There’s no railing.

I commiserate. We chat quietly, our bunks head to head like two girls at summer camp. She tells me she got in a fight with her brother, over something small and stupid, but it blew up, he got violent and she called the cops, who suggested she go stay in a shelter if she didn’t want to be around him. Now she’s here and he’s still at home with their mother. She’s joined the Marines, and leaves for boot camp on April 21. “I’d go right now if I could,” she says, but she has to wait – apparently they aren’t taking any more women right now.

She’s 19 years old, a San Francisco native. She just graduated from Washington High School and all her friends know she’s staying in a shelter. She doesn’t have a job, but she’s going to go look for one tomorrow because hanging out in the shelter is boring. It’s only for one more week – then she’s going to visit a friend in Arizona. She asks how old I am, and I tell her 29. She laughs – she thought I was her age, and I realize that almost everyone I’ve talked to has thought I was younger than I am, and I’ve thought they were older than they are.

Someone on another bunk tells us to be quiet and we try. Another hands us each a set of earplugs. When it’s time, I put them in. They’re the good kind and I sleep well.

Shower stall at Sanctuary

Wake up is at 6:30. The bathroom is cavernous, painted a jaundiced yellow, and would make a great set for a horror movie – especially the shower stalls. The one I pick has crumbling tile work and a shattered soap dish, but the water is hot.

For at least two of the toilets, the door latches have been installed backwards so it’s impossible to shut them. I hear two women brawling about it – one claiming the other is purposefully exposing herself, and the other making a half-hearted futile attempt at defense from where she sits, on the toilet. After a few more snipes, things settle down.

If you haven’t brought in TP from outside, you have to come up with a different exit strategy. A couple stalls have rolls tucked off to the side or behind the toilet, but in places where I wouldn’t want the tissue to consequently touch any of my private parts. I’ve been told that toilet paper use is monitored because they have issues with people flooding the plumbing. Hasn’t this problem been tackled by technology? Isn’t that what those annoying toilet paper dispensers that only let you have one sheet at a time are all about?

Breakfast: a bowl of grits and three boiled eggs. Nothing for the grits but sugar, powdered milk crystals, salt, and pepper. I’ve tried to avoid the word “Dickensian,” but what would you call it?

Later, I talk to Sharon Morrison, a certified diabetes educator and a nurse for shelters in Boston who consults for the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. She tells me eggs and grits, though spare, isn’t the kind of sugary nightmare she often sees in shelters. Many are dependent on donations, and consequently end up with a lot of day-old pastries and cheap cereals. “It would be great if we could get shelters to do one simple thing – oatmeal, with fresh or dried fruit or something that would naturally sweeten it,” she suggests. “Oatmeal is a really simple, good food to cook.” For the homeless diabetics she serves, which are booming in the shelters just like they are in the general population, breakfast is essential. “You want to start the day on the right foot. In order to maintain even glucose in you system you need to maintain even food in system throughout the day. Skipping breakfast is not a great idea.”

She also tips me off on a couple other common problems she sees when homelessness and diabetes cross paths. “If someone has high blood pressure one of basic treatments is HCTZ, a simple, cheap medication with no long term side effects, except it works by flushing the body to get pressure down, so it makes you have to pee a lot,” she says. “That’s not so great if you live on the street or in shelters where there’s no toilet paper. You’re giving medicine to someone that has to pee all the time and doesn’t have access to a restroom.”

Also, diabetes affects circulation, especially to the extremities, and foot care is critical. The best care is taking off your shoes and putting your feet up. However, homeless people often sleep with their shoes on so they won’t be stolen. On top of that, it’s pretty common to have less than perfect and ill-fitting shoes. They also spend inordinate amounts of time on their feet – waiting in lines or walking from one place to another. “People are required to be out of shelters at 6 a.m. and they can’t come in until late in the day. They’re basically outside walking around all day,” she pointed out.

Back at Sanctuary, I’m still sweating about the late pass, so I go talk to the shelter monitor at the front desk. She writes a note that I’m coming in late so don’t drop my bed, and tapes it to the computer. She cautions me that it’s no guarantee and I still need to talk to a supervisor, but he won’t be here for a while. I have to leave now, so it looks like that isn’t going to happen. We chat a little and I ask about her job. She’s been here four months and likes it so far. There are good benefits and a union. I inquire about a couple of things I’ve been told by HSA that the shelters are supposed to be supplying, like bus tokens.

“No, we don’t have anything,” she says. They aren’t even allowed to accept donations. If someone comes in with something, they’re supposed to send it along to Next Door, another shelter that’s managed by Episcopal Community Services. Last week a woman came by with a bunch of Avon samples and they had to tell her to go to Next Door. The samples never trickled down to Sanctuary. “It’s too bad,” she says. “It would have been nice for the women here. Everyone likes a gift.”

Back at my bunk I pack up my bag and chat with the woman in the bed beside me. She’s 64 years old, a native of Armenia who’s been living in the US for 18 years. She recently had to sell her house in Menlo Park, has been here for about a month, and is planning on extending her stay until March. She’s on General Assistance, but doesn’t get any money – just a shelter bed and help with the apartment search. They offered her an SRO, but she turned it down. She wants a place where the kitchen, bath, and bedroom are all together, where she can host friends and there aren’t arcane rules about how many visitors she’s allowed. She wants to be able to come and go as she pleases, she says, turning an invisible key in a lock with her hand, a sapphire ring glinting on her finger.

She has a car – I see the key as she rummages through her things, searching for something else. “I’m the only one,” she says, gesturing to the room of women around us, many still sleeping, making their beds, and readying themselves for the day. The bunk above her is for emergency stays, so she gets to use both the drawers and her things are packed in tightly – a clutch of hair curlers, neatly folded clothes, prim manila envelopes of important papers. Her bed is covered with a flower-printed comforter.

She isn’t working, but wants to get a day care job. “I love kids,” she says, stretching out the word “love.” Her 25-year old daughter lives in New York, and she has other family spread around the Bay Area. She’s hoping to go back to Armenia this year, for the wedding of a niece. She has a boyfriend, too, she says, smiling, but that’s another story.

She’s too young to be my grandmother, and too old to be my mother, but somehow she reminds me of family. Maybe it’s the concern she shows when the conversation turns to me. I give her the same obscure answer I’ve been giving everyone – I just need a place to stay for a few days. She seems worried, and I assure her that I have a job, things are really okay. This is temporary.

That’s something about which I’ve been impressed -- how professional the shelter staff I’ve encountered have been when it comes to the very personal reasons someone might want to be getting into a homeless shelter. I was concerned that I’d have to somehow prove my need, state my case for a bed, but there have been no questions about that. The inquiries come from other clients in the shelters. Two have asked if I was a cop. I’ve been mistaken as an employee a couple times. Most other shelter residents aren’t satisfied with pat answers about my situation – they want details because they want to help me, give me tips, make sure I’m on my way toward something better.

DAY FOUR – January 20, 2008
Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center (TARC), 187 Golden Gate Ave.

Well, I blew my bed at Sanctuary last night, but I gather this happens all the time. I got out of work late and friend I hadn’t seen in a while was hosting a party. I actually ended up falling asleep on the couch, exhausted from a lack of sleep in the shelters. So, I didn’t make it back to Sanctuary and lost my seven-day bed.

I visit TARC, late night, to see if there’s anything open. All they have are beds at MSC. I’ve already stayed there and, since I’m trying to stay in as many different shelters as possible, I turn it down. Staff tells me to hang around for awhile – something else might open up.

The room is packed but I find a seat between two very jovial guys who are welcoming in a non-threatening way. They’re hoping for beds, but there’s nothing open for men right now. We have a long, rambling talk about all manner of things. One tells me he hasn’t been staying in shelters lately because he’s on a bender – booze, not drugs. Tonight, it’s gotta end though – the weather’s been too shitty to stay outside, he’s sick of staying with his buddy who has both crack and girlfriend problems. He keeps sipping out of a Gatorade bottle that’s full of a clear liquid I’m guessing derived from a potato.

Eventually, they both get beds at Ella Hill Hutch, but now they’re waiting for a ride over there which is supposed to come from a MAP [Mobile Assistance Patrol] van. A staffer stands at the front of the room, calling out names for spots in the van, but neither of my new friends are beckoned. They don’t lose hope, but one moves off to watch the movie they’re showing on the tv in the corner – an old Richard Pryor flick.

I inquire of staff, but they still have nothing but MSC for me. It’s raining hard outside, and I see more and more people coming in. I start to feel guilty about the space I’m taking up – it’s unnecessary. I have a home. It’s cold out, it’s raining, and if there’s one more person who gets to come in and sit down because I’m not there, good. I get up and leave.

Mural on the southeastern wall of MSC South

DAY FIVE – January 21, 2008
Providence, 1601 McKinnon Ave.

Shortly before 6:00 on Monday morning I join the more enterprising homeless, trying to get an early jump on the day’s run of empty shelter beds. A certain self-controlled mayhem is going off inside the vestibule of Glide Memorial Church. Piles of backpacks, duffels, and suitcases have accumulated behind a table where they’ve been checked, cloakroom style. An unmoving line of people, waiting for hot breakfast, snakes from the basement up a dozen flights of stairs and those climbing up, searching for its end, joke that “people keep going up, but nobody’s going down.” Despite rumors of sausage, many are bailing on the hot food line and, instead, cluster around a Glide employee in a bright yellow jacket who’s handing out paper bag lunches from a gigantic trash bag, two per person. Things get a little pushy when an ambulance arrives and tries to cut through the crowd with a wheelchair to retrieve an ill man from the basement cafeteria.

Eventually I find a side room where a woman sits at a desk behind a computer. A row of empty chairs is in front of her. This is Glide’s CHANGES station. The receptionist is telling a man there’s nothing open right now, to check back later. He leaves the room reluctantly. It’s a little past 8 a.m. The reservation system has only been open for an hour.

I approach the desk and ask if I can make a reservation, if there’s anything open for women. Providence is all she can offer. I ask about availability of other shelters and she explains that at 7 a.m. when they open she’s competing with two other reservation stations. “They go fast,” she says, adding that she usually counsels people to get in line at 6:15 for the best chances. I can check again later; throughout the day beds are “dropped” in the system when reservations are cancelled. Later on tonight, even more may open up in cycles as “no-shows” are identified. On top of that most beds are allocated for certain programs and their specific beneficiaries: Care not Cash, Homeless Outreach Team, County Adult Assistance Program, Swords to Ploughshares Veterans. These unfilled beds are sometimes reapportioned to people like me who don’t have a case manager, don’t have an illness, don’t have anything wrong except the need for a place to sleep.

But it’s a gamble that can go on all day and I have to go to work. I take a night at Providence. She tells me I have to check in by 9:30 and on a printout of my reservation she writes the address and best bus routes to get there from downtown. She gives me two bus tokens from a small clutch in her desk drawer, and I’m surprised to receive them. She tells me they only give fares to Providence and Ella Hill Hutch, the two shelters outside the city center.

Shortly before 9:30, I get off the 24 bus and walk a couple blocks to Providence Baptist Church, site of the shelter. There are about 90 people lined up outside the building and I’m glad I didn’t bother coming over early. Providence is one of the least popular shelters – people tell me because it’s at the edge of the city and transportation is an issue. I’ve heard the food is better than at others, though.

Shortly after I arrive, we’re let into the building and allowed to wait in the hallways for about half an hour while they finish setting up the rooms for us. No one tells me that’s the drill, but I figure it out from what’s going on around me. I sit on the stairs in the hallway, next to a woman who has a cold, but who stays here often and fills me in on a few details. No showers, but if you whine, they might let you sometimes – which they should, she thinks: some people really need them.

They’re using a couple of hand-picked “volunteers” to help set up, something a shelter monitor at another place told me he does. It seems part of the hierarchy of power within the shelter. They’re busy hauling bags of laundered blankets into a room where we eventually check in by computer.

Mats are laid out on the floor atop a tarp and after I claim one, I wander back into the hallway to check out the facility. I’m immediately told to go back to my mat. I’m afraid to ask for anything here, especially something seemingly small like where to plug in my cell phone or what time we’ll be woken up.

Providence feels more like an emergency shelter than any of the other places I’ve been. Located in a church that’s used for many other activities every day, sheltering homeless is a guest purpose here, unlike the other places I’ve stayed where it’s the raison d’etre of the building. The bathrooms are clean, stocked with soap, toilet paper, and hand towels, but it seems a result of the church owners and operators, not the homeless service providers who take over every night and have to clear out by 7 a.m., though it’s clear they have a “leave no trace” standard.

Plates of food arrive on two sheet pans, and the cook gives a quick blessing. Spaghetti, heavily dressed salad, limp green beans mixed with cooked iceberg lettuce, and a very buttery roll. It’s all heavy, slightly greasy, but warm and the squarest meal I’ve received so far.

Moments after I finish eating the lights are turned off, even though a couple of women are still working on their meals. A shelter monitor comes through and confiscates any cups of water, saying she just refinished the floors in here and doesn’t want any spills. I notice that, unlike at other shelters where I’ve stayed, none of the women here have bothered to change into pajamas. Some haven’t even removed shoes. I follow suit, tucking my jacket under my head for a pillow and pulling the blanket around me.

There’s loud talking in the hall for a while – shelter monitors fielding and discussing phone calls. I hear one tell another they can’t bring more people over here. I wonder who she’s talking about.

When the lights come back on at quarter to six I understand why no one put on pajamas: there’s no time to get dressed. Shelter monitors enter the room rousting sleepers with catcalls to get up and get moving. One turns on a radio, loud. They’re brisk, no nonsense, grabbing blankets and shoving them into garbage bags, pulling mats into a stack at the edge of the room.

I lay there, rubbing my eyes, trying to get going. I feel stiff and achey from sleeping on the floor. “C’mon Miss, get up,” a shelter monitor prods. “We need your blanket.”

I roll off my mat, pull on my jacket, and hand her my blanket. The woman next to me, who seems disabled as she had hard time getting down onto her mat last night, says out loud, to no one in particular, “I want to know the reason why they wake everyone up so early. There’s no good reason.”

A woman becomes disturbed by being hustled and talks back to the shelter monitor. A verbal battle ensues, with the client picking up her mat and throwing it across the room, scattering her possessions. “What a woman, what a woman,” the shelter monitor yells. “We’ll see if you get a bed here tonight,” she says as the client hastily gathers her things and storms out.

Another staffer comes through with a toxic smelling aerosol, spraying it around us as we get ready to leave.

The bathroom, the cleanest I’ve come across in the city’s shelter system, is still a clusterfuck as a dozen women wait to use the three toilets and two sinks. One stall has a broken door, and the only morning conversation is apologies to the occupant.

We are out on the streets again in less than ten minutes. The effect is jarring, and consequently numbing. I feel like I could either rage or pass out standing up. We pile onto the T-line platform with our stuff, and when the train comes most of us board without paying and ride it toward the city center, toward the next best thing this still-dark day can offer. I have four hours before I have to be at work.