- [Interviewer] Francisco, we're here in San Francisco
and you're out here on the streets, tell me about it.
- Well I'm on my way right now to Embarcadero,
they give out pizza and they have about two
or three different organizations that come out
and feed from 5:30 to approximately 6:30.
And it's not a fun thing to be out here.
I was in a shelter for probably about a year and a half
and I got burnt-out of the shelter.
A guy that I know got killed off in there.
To me, the way they run the shelter, there's not exactly...
It's not exactly safe, you know, it's the people
that come in and then the way that they run the shelter.
A shelter should be where you go,
you should be able to get in, well, sometimes you go
to a shelter, you wait three or four hours.
And then when you get in, not all of them,
but a great many of the people
that work there talk demeaning to you.
I tell other people like me, we're doing them a favor
because if it wasn't for us a lot
of them wouldn't even have jobs
because a lot of them are supposed to come
from the same type of background that we come from.
And after being in the shelter
for about a year and a half I got burnt-out of it.
I see myself fixing to snap, so I decided
to things that I was telling other people
what you need to do is just don't go in the shelter
for a couple of weeks and draw up some grievances.
So I decided to stay out a night
and I've been staying out for the last six months.
It's not great out here but it's better
than, I mean for me, it's a lesser evil.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, people don't understand.
Everyone thinks, "Why don't they go in the shelters?"
But often, I'm not getting on the shelter's case,
because often they're doing the best they can
with high demand, but it's nothing nice.
- No it's, I had never stayed in the street,
maybe overnight or something like,
but I never just pull all my,
but it's, they kind of nitpick.
I know the shelters have to be,
but they, personally, see I've been incarcerated before,
years ago, and you committed a crime.
You know what I mean? - Right.
- Well at least most people
and if you haven't committed a crime,
the judge and jury tells you, "Well you didn't do that
"but you done something, you got away
"with something in your life."
But most people have committed a crime.
When you're in a shelter it's, and not only that--
- [Interviewer] You shouldn't feel
like you committed a crime.
- The thing about the shelter,
you have too much of a mixture of people.
You have young people, they're using it as a halfway house,
also, they're letting inmates go in there.
You got people that are 90 years old sometimes.
I see old women, they need to be somewhere else
because you have predators in the shelter.
You have people staying at shelters looking
to take from other people. - Right.
- I've been out here two years,
fortunately I've only had two things taken from me
but a lot of people get a lot of things taken from them.
You know what I mean? - Yeah.
- [Interviewer] So how did you end up homeless?
- A combination of things, you know what I mean?
I was on drugs in Oakland, I'm originally out of Oakland
and me and my ex-wife, while I was doing drugs,
she started doing drugs and we had been doing drugs
for, I was a working, a functioning drug addict.
Actually, I had a contract over here doing janitorial work.
It went Chapter 11 and then I was a weekend user
and eventually I started using everyday.
And we split up eventually, she went here way I went my way.
I ended up in San Francisco,
if you're gonna be homeless, you're better
off being homeless in San Francisco than Oakland.
They have less, there's less...
it's easier to survive, put it that way, in San Francisco.
That's when I was homeless the first time.
I stayed homeless for nine months
and I got a place on Sixth Street.
Stayed there for five years.
My fault, I should've been trying to get in a better place
but I continued to do drugs and I ended up getting
kicked out of there, I went upside,
well I didn't really get kicked out.
I went up somebody's head, when you're dealing
with stuff in there and they asked me,
because in five years that was my first write-up,
they said, "Well, you're one of our best people here."
You know what I mean? - Right.
- I decided I didn't wanna deal.
They had other buildings all over.
They said, "We'll move you to another building."
And I just decided I'd stay in the shelter.
You don't go wild and try--
- [Interviewer] So you're 68 you told me.
- I just made 68.
- [Interviewer] You never thought
this would be your retirement?
- Not really, I really never did envision being homeless
and so, I won't say I'm completely off drugs
but I'm headed towards that way.
I've got myself where, something happened
to me two weeks ago, you probably can't see it
but if you'd have seen me two weeks ago
both my eyes were black.
You can see my glasses right now,
look like I went in a fight with Joe Frazier.
I was in the Embarcadero.
I usually sleep over here on Sixth Street.
- But I was resting up there and feel asleep and fell.
Rolled off, and it's about three and a half
maybe four feet, on my face, I got a mild concussion
but both of these were black, I pulled my groin.
So I'm back where I'm usually,
for my age I'm a pretty mobile person
and I'm pretty energetic, but that kinda had me, it kind
of was like, you need to really start seriously
about getting yourself together
because my health has relatively been good.
But it can very easily get bad when you're my age.
And other things, you know what I mean?
- [Interviewer] If you had three wishes what would they be?
- My first one probably would be to get in Senior Housing.
And the other one would probably be able
to definitely, I mean saying you're gonna leave drugs alone
and really doing it is, but my mind is pretty much made up.
And get a relationship back with my, I have a great-grandkid
that I haven't seen because once I started doing drugs
I really didn't want them around me because they're mother
and you never seen me in that situation.
So I was kind of ashamed of myself,
so that would probably be, you know,
because you really can't do anything
until you have a place to stay.
And I'm still able to work and do things
but mainly I think drugs is a component why I'm on,
but you have all kind of people
in these slum-ass hotels doing drugs.
But I got in an incident in there
and by doing drugs you don't really think.
If I'm thinking right I would've had them put me
in another place and then tried to get in,
because I have a record from 40 years ago
and it's not helping me get in a Senior place.
- [Interviewer] Well, thank you very much
for talking with me. - Okay, all right.