All that and a bag of chips

“Hey, big brother, you think you can give me the rest of those chips when you are done with them?” A weathered, 60 something man asked me. I’d been sitting in the waiting room at San Francisco General Hospital for about 4 hours by then, and that was not the first bag of junk food I’d consumed while there. I had brought a friend with me who had an injured his foot playing Volleyball in Golden Gate Park. We knew that his injury, being non life-threatening, insured us a very lengthy wait.

I handed him the rest of my chips and told him I was done. He thanked me and said the he hadn’t eaten since the night before when he found a burrito on top of a garbage can. I told him to come down to St. Anthony Dining Room for a hot meal sometime. “In the Tenderloin? Naw. I like this neighborhood. It’s calmer and I can sleep on the street without getting bothered.”

We talked a bit about the weather, the presidential election and his ailing foot conditions until we were interrupted by a member of San Francisco’s H.O.T. (Homeless Outreach Team). I moved to another seat to give them privacy and resumed watching the news.

Thirty minutes later he came over to me smiling. They had found him a shelter bed and he was leaving. I looked around and saw two other homeless men speaking with other social workers.

Often it can take several social service agencies, both public and private, to help transform a persons life. Everyone’s journey in and out of homelessness is different, and I am graced by seeing many folks change right here at St. Anthony’s.

After buying yet another bag of vending machine potato chips I leaned back into my cold metal chair and resumed watching the news. After all, it was my day off, and the folks down at General Hospital seemed to have a good handle on things.