Berkeley is striving to rein in homeless encampments to clean up its streets and parks.

In San Francisco, weird combinations are the norm. That Chinese food and donuts restaurant near the 24th Street BART Station, for example, is just blocks from 826 Valencia, the writing workshop for kids that doubles as a pirate supply store.

So maybe comedy and homelessness isn’t so strange. But still, the promotion for “Blanket Statements,” a night of comedy with W. Kamau Bell, caught our eye. The Dec. 3 show will benefit the Gubbio Project, which allows homeless people to sleep during the day on the pews of St. Boniface Church in the Tenderloin.

The proceeds will help the Gubbio Project expand to a second church soon, but we’re not allowed to say which one yet because the congregants are just finding out at Sunday morning’s service.

“There’s a second church that is interested in responding in the same way that St. Boniface is responding to homeless folks in their neighborhood,” said Laura Slattery, director of the Gubbio Project.

Mirroring the growing homeless population citywide, the numbers at St. Boniface are rising steadily. Every day, Slattery said, about 250 homeless people come to the church — 105 to sleep and the rest to access services. Currently, people can sleep in the pews from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. five days a week, though the project may expand the hours for the anticipated El Niño rainstorms.

Slattery said St. Boniface recently required the Gubbio Project to eliminate HIV testing, haircuts, foot care and massages. She’s hopeful the second church will consider allowing such services.

Bell, a stand-up comic who lives in Berkeley, said he loves what the Gubbio Project stands for.

“They literally answer the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ I think he would do that,” he said. “Projects like theirs are key to keeping the city the diverse, accepting, loving, cool place we know it to be.”

Bell used to live at Ninth Avenue and Irving Street and said the few homeless people there became part of the neighborhood. Asked how it’s possible to blend jokes and homelessness, he went on a bit of a riff about one of those Inner Sunset homeless folks.

“I was one of only three black people in my neighborhood, and one of them was a homeless guy!” he said. “We developed a really great relationship because I was one of the only two other black people he saw during the day.

“One time I left town, and when I came back, he was like, ‘Where have you been?’ It was a weird question because I didn’t know we knew each other like that. But he said he missed me.

“I would like to say I took him home, got his life together and our story turned into a movie. But it didn’t quite end up like that.”

Too bad. We hear Will Smith is looking for his next project.

For tickets to Bell’s show, which will be held at Zendesk, visit www.thegubbioproject.org.

ZIP to the top: On the other end of the city’s ever-widening economic spectrum, San Francisco has two ZIP codes that are among the nation’s 50 most pricey when it comes to real estate.

Forbes has published its new list, “America’s Most Expensive ZIP Codes.” No. 1 on the list goes to our neighbors to the south in Atherton, 94207, where the median home price is $10.6 million. Woodside, Hillsborough and Los Altos Hills also rank among the top at slots 7, 10 and 11 respectively.

San Francisco’s most expensive ZIP code — No. 22 on the list — is 94123. For the non-mail carriers among us, that’s tech-bro central: the Marina and Cow Hollow. The median home price is $4.1 million, higher than in ritzy areas like Malibu, Tiburon and Pacific Palisades. (California, as you’re probably gathering, sports nearly half of the nation’s most expensive ZIP codes.)

The second most expensive city ZIP code — 94133 and No. 45 in the country — is mostly North Beach, which we found a bit surprising. The median price there is $3 million.

In related ranking news, San Francisco has been named America’s Most Pretentious City. But considering the index was crafted by “data scientists at coffee machine maker Café Valet,” we’ll take the study with a grain of Splenda, er, salt.

Still, we like this quote from Andrew Barnett of Café Valet: “As the standard-bearers for the ‘Regular Joe,’ we fear for San Francisco’s future. The notion that people are paying $100 for civet coffee to drink while wearing a woolen cap in the summertime is a problematic trend.”

Not as problematic, we’d argue, as needing $3 million to buy a place to live in North Beach.

Artificial integrity: Old-timers gripe that nothing in rapidly changing San Francisco is authentic anymore. Add the City Hall Christmas tree to the list.

For the first time in years — we can’t vouch for forever — the glittery tree standing just outside the Board of Supervisors chambers is artificial.

Previously, it was an honest-to-goodness evergreen provided by Delancey Street. Called the Tree of Hope, it is installed and decorated every year by the Rainbow World Fund, an LGBT humanitarian aid organization. It is covered in more than 15,000 origami cranes with wishes written on them from people all over the world.

Last year, some communication glitch meant the Rainbow World Fund didn’t set up a tree in City Hall, though city officials did. The Rainbow World Fund set up its Tree of Hope in Grace Cathedral instead, but it had to be a fake tree because the cathedral doesn’t have a sprinkler system capable of extinguishing a fire on a real tree, said Jeff Cotter, executive director of the fund.

“I found it on Craigslist,” Cotter said of the fake tree, which cost $2,500. Now that his organization is back in City Hall, he’s sticking with last year’s version because it looked so good and is easier to decorate.

The official lighting ceremony will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 2. The tree will remain on view until Jan. 3, and we’ve got to say that despite being artificial, it is a beauty. Dim jewel: An eagleeyed reader wrote to ask why the lights on the triangle atop the Transamerica Pyramid have been dark for months. Dubbed the “crown jewel,” the 6,000-watt beacon is lit only for special occasions.

Nancy Renteria, spokeswoman for the pyramid, tells us the beacon has been dark while the lights are replaced for a very special occasion. You guessed it: Super Bowl 50. Look for the “crown jewel” to be lit once again in time for the big game.

The red flashing light atop the pyramid remains as required by the Federal Aviation Administration and has nothing to do with the red-and-gold San Francisco 49ers. And that’s probably the last time you’ll read about that god-awful team in association with the Super Bowl for a good long while.