On the rough streets, a little ice cream helps

Last weekend, Brian, Aidan and I visited the SASBs in San Anselmo, all of us there to visit with Betty, her mom, who had flown in from Kansas. One of the other guests, on her third glass of wine, asked, “What happened to San Francisco? It’s not what it used to be.” She asked as if it were my fault, and for just a few minutes I wondered what I had done to cause urban decay.

Found the answer the following Wednesday, when I walked over to Civic Center Plaza to get avocado toast. Yes, I’m the kind of deputy who eats avocado toast. I’m trying not to be the kind of deputy who eats doughnuts.

But in this case, I might have been better off with the doughnuts, as there is some anonymity left with Dynamo Donuts. No questions other than, do I want the Chocolate Rose or the Bitter Queen. But there I stood at the Bi-Rite pop-up kiosk, and a man asked, “Can you help me with this homeless guy?”

First of all, I’ve got this Barney Fife deputy sheriff mystique going on. I’m not the kind of cop you ask for when you need a SWAT team. I’m not the kind of cop you talk to when you want a door kicked in (though I did once perform in a kick line). No, I’m the kind of deputy you talk to when a man is sitting on the pavement with all of his worldly possessions tied up in a plastic garbage bag.

Second of all, let’s stop calling the man a “homeless person.” Let’s just call him a person. According to last year’s survey, there are 7,498 other persons like him, living on the streets of San Francisco. More than half of them have been without a home for more than 10 years.

I’m gonna call him Bonaparte, but that’s not his real name. I’ve known him on and off for a decade. Bonaparte was once in the military, and he has been in and out of jail. Mind you, in my profession I tend to see people at their worst, but Bonaparte had hit a new low, clothing ripped, teeth missing. He was crying, and didn’t feel safe anymore, and was tired of the life on the street.

My boss is a decent person. She wanted her grilled chicken sandwich every bit as much as I wanted my avocado toast, but she knelt down, looked the guy in the eye, and asked him what he needed. She thanked him for his service and she listened when he said that he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in two weeks. He ate a bowl of chocolate ice cream and drank a little water.

We called and found that the Dore House would help him. Only Bonaparte was afraid. So my boss said, “How about we walk you down?”

She and I took turns carrying his bag, and he introduced us to a half-dozen friends as we walked, him yelling out, “Don’t worry. These guys ain’t cops. They’re deputies.” And he walked proud as he could be down 10th Street because he was with my boss and she has a lot of stars on her collar, and, as he was former military, he knew that she was important.

The city has navigation centers, which provide otherwise unsheltered San Franciscans with a room and connect them to in income, public benefits, health services and long-term housing. Sometimes, all a person needs is someone to walk them down there, on a sunny day down the ever-changing streets of San Francisco. Sometimes all a person needs is a bowl of chocolate ice cream.

Bonaparte said, “San Francisco ain’t what it used to be.” He’s right. It ain’t.

But then again, South Ozone Park ain’t what it used to be. The outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior ain’t what it used to be.

We’ve been called the City That Knows How. San Francisco lays claim to having invented denim jeans, the cable car, the slot machine, the jukebox, the martini, It’s Its sandwiches, green goddess dressing, the Murphy bed, the waterbed, Irish coffee and the fortune cookie, and the ones we didn’t really invent, we perfected. Surely we can invent a better way of treating the luckless.

Let’s be called the City That Cares.

Tomorrow, someone will say that San Francisco is not the city it was today. They’re right. It’s gonna be what we make it. And we can make it a city of miracles.

When we got to Dore Alley, found a nurse, Bonaparte shook my hand, told me I wasn’t that bad for a guy with a badge. I told him he would be OK. I hope that I’m right.

Let’s stop calling the man a “homeless person.” Let’s just call him a person.