A life on the sidewalk ends with a dignified death inside
Nobody knew many concrete details about the woman who lived for at least three years on the pavement outside the Burger King at the corner of 16th and Mission streets.
Her first name was Alice, but she gave different last names and different ages. She once told me she was 62 and another time 65. She didn’t know what year it was, how long she’d been homeless or exactly why she’d fallen into such misery.
But there is one new concrete and devastating detail. Alice died at 11:45 p.m. Saturday in St. Francis Hospital.
In December, I told you about the very mentally ill woman who sat among heaping piles of belongings, pulling her hair and relieving herself in the nearby bushes. The
city’s homeless outreach workers had tried many times to convince her to move inside, but she always declined.
She became a symbol for the late Mayor Ed Lee of the clear need to change the state’s conservatorship laws, which currently prevent officials from compelling mentally ill people to move inside unless that person poses an imminent danger to themselves or others or is gravely disabled, such as not being able to feed themselves.
Lee died before he could propose specific changes, but Mayor Mark Farrell’s administration is continuing the effort. Representatives from various departments meet regularly to determine how to help the 40 most apparently mentally ill people living on the city’s streets.
Anne Gallagher was the key for Alice. The volunteer in Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s office befriended Alice and visited her outside Burger King dozens of times. She brought her clothing, tea and shrimp fried rice, and Alice began calling Gallagher her best friend.
Gallagher and Ronen pleaded with Alice to move inside but were rebuffed many times. But finally, on Nov. 29, Alice agreed to sleep in a drop-in shelter. She then moved into a room in a single-room-occupancy hotel in the Mission. She had a case manager at the hotel and was evaluated by doctors, who determined she was gravely ill. Officials are keeping the diagnosis quiet because of privacy concerns.
Gallagher visited Alice on Wednesday and saw her friend was in so much pain, she called 911. She rode with her in an ambulance to St. Francis Hospital. Gallagher visited her there on Friday. By Saturday night, Alice was dead.
Apparently, it’s not uncommon for chronically homeless people to die within two years of moving inside. Bevan Dufty, the city’s former homeless czar, said he saw it many times. He said people living on the street have so much adrenaline pumping just to survive that it can mask medical conditions that “come to the fore when someone is able to let down their guard and just be.”
Ronen said that though Alice’s time inside was very short, she’s glad that at least her death was dignified. She was in a warm bed, receiving the medical care she needed.
“I’ll remember her as a woman who was lost and neglected by our society and who somehow, because she had an incredible spirit and will to survive, made it on the streets at an advanced age for so long,” Ronen said.
Gallagher said she will plan a memorial service for Alice and hopes everybody from city officials to the manager of the now-shuttered Burger King will attend.
“Meeting Alice and building a connection with her had a profound effect on my life,” Gallagher said. “She retained her dignity even while living on the sidewalk. She had a strong will and a feisty attitude.”
Rest in peace, Alice.
A mom thing: I took my little boy to the zoo on Friday, and we were surprised to see two fire engines, the fire chief and a host of police officials at the front entrance. Some disaster at the zoo? No. They were there to give Myles O’Connell of Sacramento the best seventh birthday a boy could have. His mom, Jennifer O’Connell, explained that Myles was diagnosed a month ago with an “inoperable, incurable brain tumor.” It’s unclear whether he’ll have an eighth birthday.
Jennifer said Myles loves police officers, firefighters and going to the zoo, so getting to spend the day with his idols seeing animals up close was his big wish.
Big kudos to San Francisco Police Officer Ray Padmore. Part of his job is coordinating charity events for the department, and his most famous effort was teaming with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in 2013 to turn San Francisco into Gotham City for Miles Scott, a 5-year-old leukemia patient who dreamed of being Batkid.
Fire Chief Joanne HayesWhite said Padmore asked her to stop by the zoo, and she readily agreed. She knows what it’s like to have a sick son; her 18-year-old son, Sean, was born with a congenital heart defect and has had several open-heart surgeries. The senior at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory is now doing well and living a normal life, Hayes-White said.
She emphasized she wasn’t there for media attention. (I really did just stumble across this by coincidence.) She hugged Myles and gave Jennifer her cell phone number in case she ever wanted to talk.
“It’s just a mom thing,” she said.