Voluntarily unhoused San Francisco man looks after his street
Communities in the Bay Area and across the country took time Thursday to mark National Homeless Person's Memorial Day, remembering those who died while living on the streets.
It comes amid an ongoing legal battle over the rights of the unhoused and how to handle widespread encampments across the state.
The ninth circuit court of appeals this year clarified that a current and controversial injunction that bars the city from clearing homeless encampments does not apply to people who are voluntarily unhoused, but for some people who choose to live on the streets it's a way of life that suits them best.
Ralph Wade made that decision eight years ago when he pitched his tent on Ellis Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.
"I pick up the trash, you know? I don't think much about what I'm doing, I'm no Nobel Prize Laureate or something like that," Wade told CBS News Bay Area.
The rain, he said, makes his unofficial job as cleaner of Ellis Street harder.
"The rain it's good to wash a lot of debris away but it does not take like see all that bitty stuff trying to spend a half hour trying to sweep it up," he explained, as he attempted to sweep a bottle cap stuck to the road.
Each morning Wade wakes up before the sun and spends hours clearing debris left by people the night before, debris that he cleaned away just 24 hours earlier.
"I do more good here doing what I'm doing someplace else just sitting around," Wade explained. "You're getting bored and then you don't know what happens after that. I think I'm better off here actually than a lot of places."
He's been cleaning this part of the Tenderloin since he retired from a career as a baker and since chose to live in a tent on the sidewalk.
But unlike businesses and residents who have often shooed encampments away, locals fight for Wade to stay and keep up his tidying, a chore he does using his own money.
"It cost me about $60 a week," Wade said. "Plus, the disinfectant, so, a small bottle of pine sol three times a week, that's $36 dollars right there."
In the month of November, the city of San Francisco said they offered shelter to 350 unhoused people and less than half of those people - just 117 - accepted.
Chris Callandrillo of Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco says that while he's unsurprised by that number it can be explained through the unique needs and preferences people have for housing.
"It doesn't mean that people don't want housing, they may not want what's available today or they may not trust the system or the outreach workers," he explained.
"Outreach workers have a hard job. They go out and offer and engage with people and build relationships and it's those relationships that bring people inside. People often don't accept the first offer they need time to build a relationship and build trust especially for people who have been in the system before and they feel the system hasn't served them it takes a lot to bring them back inside," said Callandrillo.
As of this week, 429 people remain on the city's waitlist for housing and while for some the system will work in their favor, for Wade, he's taking matters into his own hands.
"I'm not going to move into a place that I don't like. These SROs are very...you're not good, not cool at all," said Wade, pointing to his own experience in city housing.
"I've been out here a long time," he continued. "If they were worried about me I'd have a place a long time ago."
Wade says through his social security retirement he can afford a place on his own and just started looking for a private unit to rent as aging in his tent has started to take a toll on his body.
"But by the time I get done with this I'm not in the mood to do anything else," said Wade as he swept of soggy debris. "Something will come up, something will happen. The one thing you learn is patience."
But his top priority is staying nearby his current location on Ellis between Taylor and Jones to keep the area clean and a protective eye on a nearby senior living facility he says has supported him through the years.
"That's where my heart is. Right there," said Wade. "If I move far away I'm not gonna be able to get down here. When I needed to be especially there, what if something happens they have a lot of people to get out."
Wade says he chose this way of life after living nearby in the '80s but an uptick in drug use and crime have created an entirely different culture for unhoused people.
"Even the police, they've been nice to me. I've got no complaints about the treatment of myself," said Wade. "[But] you've got a certain faction of people out here that are making it bad for everybody else. That's not fair."
Rain or shine, Wade says cleaning Ellis Street gives him joy and purpose with no plans to stop.
"I believe in my heart that I want to find a place and it's going to come about I don't know how the Lord works in mysterious ways," said Wade. "If it doesn't happen my tent is sufficient enough you don't hear me complaining. And nobody's complaining. Nobody's complaining about me either."
