Bay Area strives to provide hope as suffering on streets intensifies

As a young reporter in 2003, I received an intriguing story tip: A popular Bay Area teacher who mentored high schoolers at risk of dropping out had a secret past as a delusionstricken homeless person in San Francisco. She wanted to talk about it in a bid to help others.

Diana Grippo had been raised by a loving and financially secure family, played soccer and the piano, and was a good enough student to earn a partial academic scholarship to UCLA. But bipolar disorder tightened its hold. At age 21, she spent her first night on the streets.

For nearly two years, she drifted through the Tenderloin — perhaps you saw her — hustling for money and sleeping in parks. Hospitalized at least 15 times, she felt a duty to protect those around her by

pointing her “medicine woman finger” at them. Her mother would drive through the neighborhood many nights, hoping to spot her and try to save her.

Then things changed: After Diana was picked up by police officers who found her running barefoot in a dress on Highway 101 in Marin County, her mother urged doctors to press a more intensive course of medication. The treatment took. The ordeal was over. Her life resumed.

Starting Monday, The Chronicle will present its fifth annual S.F. Homeless Project, a week of coverage focused on a crisis in San Francisco and across the Bay Area that has only worsened in recent years. We do so with people like Diana Grippo on our minds — people who should be in homes rather than on the hard streets, but who often need help getting there.

The bedrock belief underlying the project has always been as simple as it is vexing: Mass homelessness in a wealthy society is not acceptable and must be eradicated. To that end, we seek to explore solutions and provoke discourse, working to ease, if not end, the suffering that is so apparent.

The goal cannot be considered out of reach. Diana taught me that.

This year’s reporting seeks to define some of the most complex obstacles in the fight against homelessness, including the coronavirus pandemic, which has made the problem even more acute — but may offer opportunities for innovative solutions.

Other stories this year will examine the slide of the working class toward poverty amid a crisis in housing affordability; the spread of homelessness into suburban communities that may lack the resources — or political will — to properly respond; and the failure to provide crucial support to people whose mental illness or addiction leaves them vulnerable.

We’ll introduce you to people such as Juventino Barojas, newly unsheltered in San

Francisco at age 77 after a series of misfortunes. And we’ve put together a guide on how you can help.

There’s more. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, The Chronicle will host a livestreamed discussion moderated by reporter Kevin Fagan and featuring a panel of experts addressing the Bay Area crisis. To RSVP, go to tickets.sfchronicle.com/ e/chronicletalkssfhp.

Complete coverage, including guides, podcasts, multimedia presentations and answers to key questions, can be found starting Monday at sfchronicle. com/homeless. Join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #sfhomelessproject.

If you are moved by the project, please share our stories, volunteer with one of the nonprofit aid groups featured in our reporting, and ask your elected representatives to do more. Also, let us know what stories we should be pursuing in the future. Together we can make a difference.