Transforming Helpless To Helping

As San Francisco slowly reopens select retail doors, let's reflect on the past three months of shelter in place: Surprisingly, it took a while for many to comprehend what six feet distancing meant. Some hoarded food with no regard for the next person in line, while ranting their everyday flow was placed on freeze frame. Others experienced instant, distressing financial hardship within the first week - they lost everything. The lucky ones retained jobs, continuing to work from the comfort of their homes. A minimal number stepped up the plate, spun into an entirely new direction and created unique philanthropic efforts. The homeless suffered tremendously as Covid-19 spread like wildfire among tent village communities. First responders were pushed to their limits yet continued to save lives. A percentage of wealthy corporations took advantage of the government loans that were to help small businesses, yet at the polar end of the spectrum, other cash rich companies immediately pivoted their business to produce life saving equipment.

Ultimately, there has been no collective rhythm nor flow since March's shut down. People have disbanded into multiple directions including protesting, dismantling statues, volunteering, hiding behind closed doors, suffering or rising up to the occasion. It has not remotely been a case of 'we're in this together.' No one knows how they'll react when faced with unpaved territory so it's been interesting to witness the perpetual split, bonding, severance and/or unity dynamic within society that hits or misses on a daily basis - and it changes weekly.

But as our city begins to regain a pulse, albeit a faint one, for everyone who's not lifted a finger by way of paying forward, it's never too late. If you dwell on your progress the past 90 plus days, are you proud of what you produced? Are you content with how you helped others? When we support the ones that lack what we have, it enriches our soul. Again, there's no expiration date on uprising to give back.

If you've felt helpless since March, think about how you can convert this to helping. If you saw the virus as an opportunity to bounce up and volunteer, reflect on how it made you feel. Please email us how Covid-19 has changed your mindset, lifestyle patterns and spiritual growth for the better and with your permission, we'll promote this on our Facebook page to encourage others.

When we're helpless, we become needy, despondent, redundant, resentful and angry so therefore become the ones that require help. But when we support others during stressful or unprecedented times, we naturally evolve into being better, stronger and more compassionate people. We understand how valuable we are to ourselves, and others.

So we're asking again - are you satisfied with how you've spent the past quarter?

 

Street Fridges Must Be The Future

According to experts, 30% (1.3 billion tonnes) of all food produced worldwide is wasted annually. When we've finished eating half our sandwich, it goes right into the trash. We assume that 'best by' dates on eggs are written in stone, so dump them maybe too early. We buy a dozen cupcakes, eat two and discard the rest once our craving passes. Obviously there are cities that adopt the 'put food on top of the trash bin' mentality so the homeless can grab items, but it's not cultural, everyday practice. Our first impulse is to just throw out what we don't want, which is why a third of food goes to tragic waste.

Due to Covid-19, the food supply chain had to redirect its resources. Restaurants weren't in demand since supermarket hoarding became the norm. This resulted in a bottleneck as farmers and suppliers were still producing ingredients, so the chain was backed up. Food banks swiftly came to the rescue, proving a primary release of these never ending ingredients. But many homeless didn't receive the benefit of these food banks as they tend to rely on foot traffic donations. So now we're talking about food waste plus the lack of food going to the poverty stricken. 

Which is why Pappadavada comes into play. This restaurant in Kochi, India decided enough was enough, so the owner simply placed a fridge outside her restaurant and stocked it with surplus kitchen prep food. The homeless came out in droves, took what they needed and went on their way. Soon after, nearby restaurants and locals started to place their own food surplus in the Pappadavada fridge since the door's open 24/7.

The result: Dozens of homeless people are fed daily and even though there aren't statistics on how much this campaign has lowered food wastage, it's obviously heading in the right direction towards rectifying the problem. Other cities have adopted this street fridge ethic including The People's Fridge, London yet this innovation still hasn't become a movement or sidewalk staple. Why hasn't it? It's so simple...

Imagine if every city operated this way in reducing food waste while feeding the needy. Neighborhoods would be accountable for stocking them up and we can easily reduce waste quickly when we know a fridge is ready to be fed, and emptied. Major tourist attractions with gluttonous food streams could easily set the wheels in motion i.e. New York's Times Square, Santa Monica Pier, Miami's South Beach, Las Vegas's all-you-can-eat-buffet, London's Piccadilly Circus etc.

With so many dining establishments sadly going out of business, please check if they'd donate their fridge to the neighborhood. All you need is an outdoor socket and a sign on the door 'Neighbors & businesses, feed me 24/7 so I can feed the hungry.' Or please let us know and we'll start the ball rolling. Street fridges are for everyone - to give and receive. Let us start giving, so the needy can always receive day or night. 

Shared Spaces & Shared Food

Starting this Friday, San Francisco will introduce Shared Space. The vision is to change the way we enjoy our city, using sidewalks or parking lanes for restaurants and businesses, so they can better serve customers while everyone maintains social distancing. This is a free permit, temporary program for retailers to utilize i.e. seating, dining, retail pick up etc. while nudging us towards the adorable art of human interaction, once again.

Throughout the past two months, San Francisco has been operating road diets whereby streets have cut off public vehicles (or lanes are narrowed down), ensuring walkers have more room to exercise and spin their arms around freely.

Over the past five years, 60,000 more cars have crammed our streets, a result of gig focused tech companies. The number of vehicular accidents and deaths in San Francisco are three times higher than other city in the US, because our city isn't designed for so many cars. Therefore, the recent contrast from mass, speeding four wheels to gorgeous vehicle-free roads has been wonderful. Cars have truly been given a back seat.

With more wiggle room and the shared space initiative coming into force, we can only hope and pray that this, and the road diet, will become a permanent fixture. San Francisco is geographically stunning and should be seen on foot, a bike, roller-blades and a skateboard. 

Where is our train of thought going?

Well, the more cars that hit our streets the past half decade, the less distracted we were by the growing number of poverty sitting on the curb. Ultimately, when you're in a moving vehicle and irritated that you may be late to the next meeting, the last thing you're focused on is someone who's not had any food all day. But hey-ho, then came Covid-19 which resulted in our leaders relocating the homeless from the Tenderloin into social distancing tent villages, scattered around all our neighborhoods. The greater the road diets and foot traffic, the greater eyeballs we had on seeing these tent villages come to life in all our hoods. The more we walked, the more we handed food to the needy. Ultimately, this is the time for us to step it up with the shared space & road diet programs. The poverty are now not crammed into the Tenderloin. They're (rightly so) in all our districts, because diversity is the foundation of cultural integration and growth for all. 

When you skip down the street to relish eating lunch alfresco at a restaurant (for the first time since mid March),  please give a nearby homeless person half your food. If you're tight on cash, please pay for a side order and hand it to them. If you're really broke, buy a couple of 20c bananas and offer them to the person who hasn't had a bath in a month. Shared spaces means we aren't rushing, so we can see others, and we can share our food with those that never rush, because they have no place to go. 

This is what it looks like...it's incredibly simple yet effective...

Because Light Always Overpower Dark

Here's a badly needed positive story in the midst of a series of tragedies, upheavals and a tremendous uprising from criminal, self serving rioters:

Holy Trinity Lutheran church's website states they usually have 200-250 Sunday Service worshipers. This past Sunday, it reached nearer towards 10,000 prayer participants spread out on their lawn. Partnering with Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, last week they converted their building to serve as a medic station/hospital for ones with injuries. Their church became a shelter to help the sick, grieving, fearful and hungry. 

Rising even higher, the church also asked for food donations to help the needy. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Minneapolis posted a recent update after they'd turned their church into a grocery store, once the food supplies came flooding in. The power of good deeds, by their congregants and locals, was featured in the news.

Kind, pure-hearted people donated food throughout the week. So much food that the church had to turn their entire building into a grocery store whereby anyone could pick up items with no questions asked, food banks included. Finally they requested people to stop donating. Not because they didn't want the supplies. But because they had completely run out of space to host any more food. 

At a time where justice isn't what these sheer vandals want, yet are purely pursuing greed for their own selfish motives, we applaud Holy Trinity Lutheran Church for opening their doors, their prayers, their hearts and their community in magnificent bonding. When we are faced with dark times, scary times, petrifying times where dark attempts to destroy the good we've achieved, this church proves that light is always the powerful force. 

Remember, the only thing that can ever destroy dark...is light. 

If you have even $5 to spare, please donate it to this church. The church asks that when you choose a fund, select 'other' and simply type 'justice.'

This is what light looks like - just in case you were wondering. 

 

SF CARES advocates for the needy, the poverty stricken and ones that cannot help themselves. We always give credit where credit is due. Holy Trinity has proven to be an exceptional example. The only time you should be looking down on someone, is when you're helping them up. Something for everyone to remember. 

Showering the Homeless - Please Donate

Our blog has a dedicated page called 'Showering the Homeless' and we'd like you to read it. This is part of Matt Haney's tweet today, validating the severity and urgency of our Showering program:

SF CARES advocates for the needy, the poverty and the ones living on the street that need a break in life. Once Saint Paulus Lutheran Church relocates back to 999 Eddy Street later this year, their church will have showering and laundry facilities. Instead of the standard 'have a shower, let us clean your clothes and send you back on the street' integrity that other churches kindly offer, SF CARES and Saint Paulus have teamed up to take this to a whole new level:

We'll encourage the homeless to bring in resumes. While showering, we'll match their credentials to a new government initiative that's launching this year - pairing the individual to a govt featured nonprofit job. The nonprofit will pay for the individual's hotel stay during their 30 or 60 day work probation. During that time, we'll source the new employee affordable housing. 

Note that around 30% of the homeless have qualifications, are recently homeless, are not street conditioned nor have addictions. By SF CARES reducing San Francisco's poverty by one third, this will make national and international news headlines. The media attention will encourage other churches and .orgs (with showers) to use our blueprint formula, so we can collectively end poverty. We have so much of our plan locked into place yet seeing Matt's tweet reinforces that we need to work harder once Saint Paulus opens their Eddy Street doors. 

Please donate today to our Showering the Homeless program and please share this post. Even $10 will be a tremendous help. Thank you!

Everyone Of Us Can Help The Homeless

Many people have felt helpless over the homeless the past two months. Shelter in place forced us to pound the streets less. Supermarkets were limiting supplies. Food banks requested less people, to avoid crammed environments. This all made sense, in order to keep everyone safe from spreading the virus. With kitchens closed and less foot traffic, hand out food has reduced to a minimum. But now that the shelter has shifted towards a slightly more relaxed state, please consider the ways you can help the homeless. It'll be a tremendous support for our neighbors who live on the street:

Grocery shopping: Please buy a few extra bananas. They're really cheap at Trader Joes and Grocery Outlet, costing around 20c per banana. Hand them out to the homeless when you pass by.

Supermarket freebies: Even though Safeway's Play Monopoly has ended, Safeway confirmed they're still handing out a few extra tickets. Please check yours and if you've won a bagel, donut or any other food, wouldn't it be nice if you paid forward by giving it to a local who lives in a tent?

Food Runner support: Food Runners is San Francisco staple but they had to tweak their business during Covid-19. Instead of accepting donated food by local institutes, hotels and restaurants to distribute to ones who needed it most, they received food that required cooking. So they jumped on the task, set up a kitchen space at 1525 Waller and volunteers have been donating their time (two hours during the week or weekend) in helping prepare and package food for others. 

Lend an ear with phone help: Many people have suffered depression from living in isolation. Please contact Shanti.org and donate your time by signing up to the Shanti program and calling ones that just need someone to chat with. 

The above are temporary pay-forward initiatives but if you're like the SF CARES team, you know that once you start, you won't stop. Those bananas won't eat themselves, the phone won't dial itself, the produce won't chop itself and freebie supermarket wins won't cash in themselves. Let us all do our part and help others. 

 

Case Study on Hotels + Law Enforcement + Homeless Covid-19 Crisis

Did you see this tweet by Poor Magazine? 

The magazine ran a test to see how hotels in San Francisco reacted to potential, new occupants. They told the hotel they were doing a documentary on the multi billion dollar hotel industry (true) and how it related to the homeless, who have been banned from staying in these hotels by the city's top official.

Back to the tweet story: The hotel was friendly towards the magazine, gave them a decently priced deal on rooms and let them see the rooms without demanding any ID or payment. Once in the room, the magazine said they weren't leaving, were homeless and had nowhere else to go. The hotel then stated the individuals would be handcuffed and arrested by the SFPD, and escorted out the building. 

It's important to note that SF CARES doesn't support anyone who acts without genuine intention. Poor magazine hit that cusp yet their case study proved that if you look decent i.e. clean and well dressed, you'll get a room no questions asked. So the hotels are just sitting, empty ducks.

Thousands of homeless have turned our city into a dumping ground because they have nowhere else to go. The Tenderloin district is riddled with human feces and needles. Apartment residents in the area are petrified for their lives, for fear of mugging or abuse, so can't leave their homes. Think we're over-reacting? Read our recent post including a lawsuit filed again the mayor by UC Hastings, local businesses and residents, all located on the Tenderloin border that are completely sick of this situation.

Nevertheless, over a third of the homeless are not street conditioned, nor addicts, yet are refused a hotel room. Even if the city accommodated these people, there would be one third less living on our sidewalks. It would make a huge dent in fixing this problem.