As a member of the JEVA (Justice Education, Volunteers, and Advocacy) work unit, I host groups of volunteers on a weekly basis. Yesterday, as I was waiting in our Dining Room for the group to finish its shift, I was treated to an impromptu concert by one of our guests.

This guest, an older gentleman with an easy smile, sat down at the piano in the dining room lobby and started playing one of my favorite songs: Lucille by Little Richard.

I wasn’t the only person enjoying the concert. Another Dining Room guest heard the music and came over, smiling and dancing, and said, “There’s so much talent in the Tenderloin“. Other dining room guests who were still in line for food were smiling, dancing, clapping, and snapping their fingers.

After a few minutes, the piano player’s friend came over and said, “Hey man, I didn’t know you played the piano.” The piano player said, “I just needed something to do while I was waiting for you.”

All we have to do is open our eyes and our minds, and we can find all sorts of talent in the Tenderloin. I’m proud that the St. Anthony Foundation Dining Room is a part of what brings out the best in the Tenderloin: the talent, the generosity, the friendship, the community, and the love.

In San Francisco, nearly one in three people over 75 years old lives in poverty. This is more any other county in California. Not L.A. with its massive urban poverty, not Tulare with its thousands of low-income farm workers, not Humboldt with its devastating unemployment. San Francisco, one of the wealthiest cities in the wealthy U.S.

In the Tenderloin, over 15,000 people live below the federal poverty line. One in six of these are seniors.

More than 76% of seniors survive on smaller monthly incomes as a result of the Social Security cost of living adjustment being denied. In 2009, 92% of seniors’ monthly expenses increased by $40 to $120 while their income did not increase at all.

Nearly half said they were having trouble paying their electrical and utility bills. They made up the difference in hospital and doctors visits.

As my colleague Jen puts it, seniors are no longer living on a fixed income. They’re living on a shrinking income.

That’s why so many programs at St. Anthony’s take special care when it comes to seniors. The Dining Room, the Free Clothing Program, the Social Work Center all provide special services for senior guests. In the Dining Room, Guest Services staff keep on eye on the elderly and flag a social worker when a senior begins not to look well. Social workers check in with seniors to make sure that their safety, health, and well being are being tended to.

The Dining Room also hosts a monthly Senior Brown Bag Program which provides meat, fresh produce, and non-perishable food items, as well as a monthly Emergency Food Assistance Program disbursement, using food supplied by the Federal government. St. Anthony’s has opened an Emergency Clothing Closet upstairs from the Dining Room, crucial for elderly people who have trouble walking the four city blocks to the regular Free Clothing Program.

The Social Work Center helps seniors secure a consistent source of nutritious food, safe housing, benefits, medical care, and money management. It’s a delicate balance of a person’s self-sufficiency, St. Anthony’s support to maintain it, and an intervention available if needed.

We’re all seniors in training, as Fitz, another St. Anthony’s colleague, used to say. One day we’ll be grateful to receive respect from those who also give us help.

I saw an article today about the inherent need for health care for the poor and uninsured and was stuck by the similarities between a group of Tennessee-based health care providers who opened shop in the Los Angeles Sports Arena and our own clinicians here at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic. The LA group, known as Remote Area Medical, is comprised of hundreds of hundreds of doctors, dentists, and other medical professionals who historically have focused on caring for impoverished rural populations. As we know here in the Tenderloin, the demand for health care for the underserved in big cities continues to grow and now the RAM doctors have taken to the busy streets in an effort to meet healthcare needs, much like we do every day here at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic.

As Health Care Reform continues to move forward, I find myself feeling hopeful for the future of American health care – even if major changes won’t be entirely evident until 2014.  However, here in the Tenderloin we see the need for health care TODAY, the need for services for working  adults  and families and children right outside the St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic doors. We provide care to more than 3,100 poor and uninsured patients a year and many of whom will not be eligible for government health care coverage when it becomes available. We will be here, as we are today, providing those in need with the comprehensive healthcare they deserve.

Ed. Note: This week’s entry is written by Ryan Hall, a current intern at St. Anthony Foundation.

Sometimes the most profound experience of the Divine occurs in the most unexpected place. Since I began my internship at St. Anthony’s last fall, my usual mode of transit is through the Civic Center BART and for nearly seven months one man has been capturing my fascination, Melvin the violin man. If you’ve been through there, you know exactly who I am talking about. His appearance is much like those of many homeless individuals who have few resources to take care of themselves, tattered and dirty clothes, missing teeth, and carrying everything he owns. Yet, he is by no means ordinary. Melvin is in the BART station nearly every time I go through there and he is always playing a violin, always smiling and occasionally dancing. There is one caveat however; his music is not typical by any means. To the trained and untrained ear, Melvin’s music often sounds like fingernails on a chalk board. When I first saw him I thought he was just trying to be funny to make a buck, as all the strings on his violin were clearly broken. Whether it’s drugs, mental illness or inspiration, I do not know, but as the months went by I realized that Melvin really believed he was playing something beautiful. He even has sheet music that he appears to have written, and occasionally stops playing in order to edit it for just the right notes. His concertos are truly unique!

When I see him however, many questions come to mind. We live in a society that often places primary value on a person through their wealth, fame, professional skill or advanced knowledge, yet Melvin doesn’t quite fit into any of these categories. His music will never get him a record contract and most likely he will never be famous and make millions (though he is fairly popular on YouTube).

If this is how society frequently judges people, I often wonder, where does Melvin fit, not to mention all those we serve at St. Anthony’s? As a Christian, I believe every human being is loved by God and therefore has inherent human dignity and value that can never be taken away. Each time I see Melvin, I am reminded of this. Melvin challenges our culture to look beyond our superficial values and see the person for who they really are. They have nothing else to offer, but themselves. Melvin tries to offer his skill, knowing that is what his culture wants if his life is to have value, but his skill is frequently not appreciated. Nevertheless, when I walk by I am able to recognize his true value, which is so much greater than anything our society could place on him. Sometimes, I imagine that he really is playing a beautiful piece of music, certainly God can hear it. I thank God for Melvin each time I see him because without him, I may not recognize humanity’s true value and the divine presence in each one of us.

There’s been plenty of attention to the new Disney / Tim Burton collaboration of L. Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Although there are many ways to interpret Alice’s “journey” of distortions, I imagined a little version to go something like this:

“Alice”, rather that falling down a “rabbit hole”, comes up from the BART/Muni Civic Center station underground, into the neighborhood of SF’s Tenderloin. She’s considering becoming a volunteer at St. Anthony Foundation, though still a little nervously entertaining some of the stereotypes of the neighborhood that she’s heard. Her first surprise is the bustling Farmer’s Market in United Nations Plaza. Wonderful aromas of fresh greens and flowers draw her into the crowd of shoppers speaking languages from all curves of the globe. Alice can’t resist a sampling of honey tasting at one booth, and with an added sweetness makes her way across McAllister St, up Leavenworth to Golden Gate where she sees about a dozen or so toddlers gathered on the corner. All of them are giggling with each other as they get ready to cross the street with their teachers from the Head Start Program. “My goodness!” thinks Alice, “children in the Tenderloin!” (Yes, the Tenderloin is home to many families, with members of all generations, many of them first generation immigrants). As Alice rounds the corner, walking East on Golden Gate, she walks past St. Boniface where she sees the tail end of a growing line of folks. “Can you tell me where St. Anthony’s is? “ she asks a tall fellow with a guitar strapped to his back. “You’ve found it, “ he smiles. “This is the line for the St. Anthony Dining Room”. He gives her a small bow, and adds – “Care to join us for lunch?” Alice smiles widely: “Thank you for your help! I’m here to volunteer.” The gentleman points toward the staff person handing out the numbers to enter the line: “She’ll tell you who you need to talk to”.

And so begins, a journey into “Tender-land” for Alice…not anything liked she’d imagined! “I wonder if some of the things I’ve heard about this neighborhood might be a bit biased or distorted.” Puzzled and hopeful, Alice signed up for a Volunteer Orientation.

To be continued …

In 2007, the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) received tax credits to renovate two buildings in the Tenderloin district that house low-income seniors, but wasn’t able to exchange their tax credits for cash until after the passage of the ARRA (American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) in 2009. With the new ability to fund the project, construction and renovation on the buildings should begin this week.

These housing units were contracted under Section 8 of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, allowing low-income individuals or families to pay a portion of rent rather than market-rate rent. The previous owner of the building had thought about selling the building to a private investor who would convert the units into market-rate housing, forcing most, if not all, of the senior residents to try and find somewhere else to live since they could not afford market rates on their monthly income.

Thanks to the TNDC who bought the buildings, these new units will be retrofitted and include community rooms and an outdoor garden. This building project is the first in San Francisco to take advantage of the ARRA funds and benefit the community by employing constructions teams and providing affordable and humane housing for the marginalized and underprivileged. It’s efforts like this that improve the Tenderloin neighborhood and the lives of the guests that St. Anthony’s helps.

Click here for the original article.

… is worth a pound of cure. “Let’s Move”, First Lady Michelle Obama’s new campaign to curb child obesity, puts an encouraging focus on public health. The campaign focuses on improving school lunches, enhancing availability and awareness of nutritious food options, and encouraging daily exercise. Childhood obesity is the root of many problems later in life, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

The campaign could potentially mean change for neighborhoods like ours here in the Tenderloin: “Let’s Move” campaign is rolling out “$400 million in tax breaks to encourage grocery stores to move into ‘food deserts,’ areas with limited supplies of nutritious food, and spending $5 million more to establish and promote farmers’ markets” according to SF Gate. Our neighborhood has not one single grocery store but is dominated by corner stores (over 179 active liquor licenses!), making the Tenderloin an ideal candidate.

With any luck, tax incentives will move store interest towards areas like our own. If the campaign is successful, we may be taking our firsts steps on our way to making preventative health an American priority.

Written by Vincent, St. Mary’s College “Jan Term” intern who took advantage of opportunities to serve at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic and St. Anthony Dining Room, while also participating in activities that bring to light some of the factors that perpetuate poverty:

Learning about the Tenderloin Neighborhood began my first day. It is home to more than18,00 people according to census data now a decade old. This number of course only includes those with roofs over their heads. These people live in the 25-30 blocks which comprise the neighborhood. It is the poorest in the city and the second most populous after Chinatown. In contrast, it is bordered by Nob Hill, the Civic Center, and the designer stores of Union Square.

For lunch the first day we stood in line with the guests at the Dining Room. I felt more welcomed by the others in line than by those serving food, for whom the numbers of people in line I’m sure get overwhelming. (The Dining Room currently serves 2600 meals per day.) I was sure to keep that in mind the following day when my role was as server, instead of servee. Acknowledging people with a smile is core to the Franciscans (who began the Dining Room and work at St. Boniface Church next door) and their focus on how each person is served. It became the most clear to me that this human decency was nothing short of miraculous when we exited the building after several hours of serving and busing trays. The line stretched down the long inside corridor and wrapped around the corner of the building to the halfway point of the block. (more…)

Over 50 individuals residing in the Tenderloin visited the St. Anthony Poverello Room today to take a standardized test. Not just any test, but one to work for the 2010 Census Bureau. TL regulars picked up #2 pencils and tried their hand at a 28 question test to assess their skills and to determine what positions they were most qualified for.

The Tech Lab, a program conceived between two partnerships, again reached out to the community to collaborate with the Tenderloin Workforce Center (TWC). The TWC is a city funded program aimed at helping individuals obtain employment. Not completely dissimilar to some of the services offered at the Tech Lab for folks who are looking for employment, the TWC’s sole mission is to provide the community with valuable resources and information helpful in the job search. Oh, and it is conveniently located next door the Dining Room entrance. It became apparent that both the Tech Lab the Workforce Center were referring clients back and fourth; The Tech Lab would send individuals to TWC who were looking for work, training programs, or resume tips while TWC would send folks over who needed to brush up on their computer skills. When contact was made with someone working for the 2010 census, it seemed a natural partnership would be created for the project. (more…)

This summer I had the privilege of (interning) at St. Anthony’s, a non profit organization that helps underserved people of Francisco. Their mission is to feed, heal, shelter, clothe, lift the spirits of those in need, and create a society in which all people flourish. During my internship at St. Anthony’s I was able to work in many different areas o service. My first experience was in the Dining Room. I was terrified of the setting because I had never been in the Tenderloin area, so I did not know what to expect. Very soon, I found that it was a joy to work there. There is just something about giving a meal to someone who really needs it, but the best reward for me was simply a smile and a “thank you.”

I really loved that the Dining Room at St. Anthony’s was actually called a “dining room,” instead of a soup kitchen. Just the name made it feel like it was a family setting, somewhere you could come home and feel safe, like a home with your own family. And, as time progressed, I felt like I had joined the St. Anthony Family because each time I can to volunteer there was always someone calling out my name. I never knew how much it meant to me that someone knew my name until I started working there. I felt loved because someone actually took the time out of their day to learn my name and remember my face.

Working at St. Anthony’s taught me so much about life. It helped me break down the barrier of my fear of homeless people. I learned that when you are on the outside looking in, you can sometimes be so quick to judge, but when you are inside, taking on the emotions of others, you can identify with them and become more understanding. At first, I thought this internship would feel just like community service, but I feel that I have walked away with so much more than that. Now I fully understand the causes and effects of homelessness, I can really look at all people with respect and not judge them.