After 10 hours of panhandling Saturday in San Francisco’s Richmond District, three self-described yuppies had collected nearly $40, some bread and cheese, a food stamp and someone’s leftover pizza.
Enough for a day’s meal, but not for a night’s stay in the city’s cheapest motels.
The bank across the street flashed 47 degrees and 10:17. Debating over where to camp out, Adam Fine suggested that the sheltered cove in front of Blockbuster Video might be nice.
Fine, along with fellow San Franciscans Amelia Thomure and Michael Goldenberg, pledged to spend 24 hours living as the homeless do to educate themselves and the public about life on the streets.
Following the tradition of political activist theater, in which those who don’t like the news go out to make their own, the three sought media attention to prove that something can be done for the thousands of the homeless in the city.
And in another tradition, Fine, who along with Goldenberg is Jewish, said he wanted to perform the simple mitzvah of helping others by raising awareness of the issue.
Fine, who goes to services every Friday, consulted with his rabbi, Alan Lew, at Congregation Beth Sholom before venturing into the cold. Lew told him that any good he could do for the homeless would be a blessing.
The money collected by the three will be donated to the St. Anthony Foundation, which offers a variety of services to the homeless and needy.
Fine hopes the outing will help kick off a corporate-sponsored project to offer “homeless street kits.” The packs would include razors, soap, toothpaste, tampons, towelettes and socks. Fine wants to drum up support for the kits from the Jewish community.
“Ideally, you want to get the homeless off the street. But since that is almost impossible, the kits will help make life easier on the streets. It will help them feel a little more human,” said Fine, who owns a marketing-consulting firm.
Only three homeless people had passed by Fine’s group before midnight. One woman they met said she could hardly eat since her stomach was injured after she was hit by a car a year ago.
Fine’s group met another panhandler already staked out at the Blockbuster. The man said he reluctantly resorts to begging sometimes to make the month’s rent. Another man just roamed the sidewalk back and forth, nervously and rapidly. Fine believed he was on drugs.
“There’s no formula for homelessness,” said Fine, who interviewed several street dwellers to understand their problems before embarking on his own mission.
“Most seem like pretty normal people. The common denominator is that some catastrophic event happened and then other bad things just snowballed. Sometimes it takes three or four years to get out of that.”
The money made by the three, who spent a good deal of time aggressively courting nickels and dimes from passersby, seemed an average take for a day on the streets, said Thomure, a recent theater graduate from University of Southern California.
“It’s meaningless and a waste to spend your whole day trying to come up with money to subsist on,” said Thomure while rattling a coffee cup full of change.
The three, who met at a personal development seminar a few months ago, were dressed for the part. Thomure was cloaked in a ratty blanket, while Fine wore black jeans and a jeans jacket. Goldenberg grew a scraggly beard for the occasion.
“It’s surprising that people who don’t have a lot seem to give the most, and people who have everything barely look you in the eye,” Thomure said.
Fine hollered for attention at those strolling past. Most resisted every urge to look at him and walked quicker. Even the occasional dollar dropped into their hat failed to relieve the tedium of begging and waiting.
“People are so accustomed to the homeless,” Fine said. “They figure that if they can’t give money to all the people, they won’t give anything. It’s disgusting in such a wealthy economy.”
Fine’s hands did not do much except sit in his pockets. To pass the time, he allowed himself an indulgence from another life — a Walkman with a tape teaching him how to chant from the Torah.
“I’m trying to catch up on the lessons I missed as a kid,” he said.
At noon on Sunday, all three got on a bus and went home.