The streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district can appear to be a cacophony of poverty and human suffering: crowded, dirty streets, the occasional smell of urine and feces, a barefoot person huddled on the sidewalk, their meager belongings strewn about them, tents, open drug use. For some, with nowhere else to go, the street is their home; they live their lives in public.
For others, who inhabit small, cramped rooms in single room occupancy hotels—SROs—the street may be their living room, a meeting place, a hang out, a social center, the hub of their social life.
It’s easy to miss the richness, the irrepressible diversity and vibrancy of life in this neighborhood: the volunteers at St. Anthony’s shepherding the line of people waiting for a hot meal or accepting donations of clothes from cars that pull up on Golden Gate Avenue, the elderly Chinese woman with her two-wheeled shopping cart on her way to pick up free groceries, a father walking his kids to school, the city workers tasked with the never-ending labor of cleaning the streets, and an invisible network of social workers, small non-profit organizations, community health workers, and many others working to mitigate the corrosive effects of addiction, mental illness, trauma, and poverty that plague the residents of this neighborhood. If you keep your eyes down you might miss the vibrant murals on the sides of the buildings or overlook the teams of Urban Alchemy workers trained in de-escalation techniques peppered throughout almost every block.
On a crowded block of Eddy Street, across from the Tenderloin Police Station, stands San Francisco Historical Building #176. Built in 1907 after the earthquake, this four-story building is the home of the Cadillac Hotel and the Tenderloin Museum. Apart from its imposing exterior, it might be unremarkable in light of the dozens of other SRO hotels that populate virtually every block of the Tenderloin. But the Cadillac Hotel is no ordinary SRO.
In the large but spare lobby bounded on one side by a wall of postal boxes and another by large windows that look out onto the street, a dozen residents are sitting around chatting. It is Friday morning, time for coffee hour when residents can gather, enjoy free coffee and donuts, and socialize. Prominent in the room is a fully restored, 1884 Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano, donated to the hotel in memory of Patricia Walkup, a San Francisco activist and former volunteer at the Cadillac. It is not just a prop. It is tuned once a month, before the monthly free jazz concerts booked by Kathy Looper, the owner of the hotel.
Since September of 2022, Zen Caregiving Project (ZCP) volunteers have been going to the Cadillac every Friday to provide emotional and social support for the residents living there. The intention is to also be able to provide mindful support for residents who are ill. At present, there is a death at the Cadillac about every 3 months, though during the pandemic there were many more. Overdoses are common and there are Narcan stations—Narcan is a nasal spray that will immediately arrest an opioid overdose—in hallways throughout the hotel.
Our work is a collaboration between ZCP and Curry Senior Services, which has been providing a variety of wellness programs at the Cadillac for the past five years. Curry offers a range of services: Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Spanish language AA, a food pantry, live music, weekly community meals provided by an organization called Healing Well, and monthly Art Social meetings where art supplies are provided for the residents, many of whom display previously undiscovered artistic talent. There are also health education and disease management workshops. There is a nurse onsite two days a week and community health workers and case managers who work there daily.
The resident population is diverse. Of 150 rooms, 75% of the population is over the age of 55, 43% are Spanish speaking. Some work regular jobs and go out every day and some rarely leave their rooms. Some are disabled, some show no physical indication of poor health but bear the scars of trauma, addiction, and mental health struggles. And they all have stories, colorful, astounding, heartbreaking stories. ZCP volunteers listen; we are witnesses to whatever the residents want to share about themselves, their lives.
Author and activist, Parker Palmer said, “The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is.” At Zen Caregiving Project we embrace the notion of the mutuality of service, so that witnessing and companioning become a mutual process that serves the needs of both residents and volunteers.