It’s a Friday night at Chief Sullivan’s, an Irish-themed bar in North Beach, and The Irish Newsboys are about to perform one of their signature Irish tunes. But don’t expect to hear a song about leprechauns and pots of gold. The Newsboys’ repertoire favors songs about Irish freedom like “The Rising of the Moon” and ...
How do you eat If you are on a fixed income and live in a single-room occupancy hotel? When the pandemic closed a lot of your favorite cheap food spots? If you are Christopher Coleman, you get creative with your mini fridge and microwave. “The way you cook a juicy porkchop in a microwave, you ...
The family’s money was tight, but Kathy Looper, then a teenager, headed to Union Square and a shopping trip to I. Magnin. She had three home-made dresses and was wearing the best one. “I thought I looked rich,” she said. When she got to the ritzy store, a man standing by the entrance stopped her ...
It’s 5:45 on a cool, damp Friday morning in the Tenderloin and Joe Kaniewski is about to take seven Tenderloin residents on a two-mile jog through the ‘hood. After brief warmup exercises and a sharing circle punctuated with a team cheer, the runners head over to Market Street. Less ambitious members of the group walk ...
It’s lunchtime at Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, and the Potrero Avenue soup kitchen is abuzz with activity. A few dozen people are sitting down to a meal of macaroni salad, vegetable soup, and tea. Others are lined up for a shower. A volunteer is distributing socks and other clothes, and a few guests ...
Gonzalo Guoron arrived every morning at 5:45 a.m., threw open the doors at 6 a.m., and ushered 50 to 90 tired souls up all night in the cold into the warmth of the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Evangelist. Until the pandemic closed those doors, Guoron was a hospitality monitor for the Mission District ...
