Peace

[sarals]

One woman's solution for the homeless

Rob Morse Friday, May 2, 2003

Almost a year ago, Gretchen Lott got tired of facing homeless people with nothing to offer and not much to say.

"I'd park my car in the lot and find the homeless people waking up," said Lott, a San Mateo resident who works as a sales rep at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco's Financial District. "I'd come back in the evening, and they'd be going to bed."

The question she asked herself was: "What can I do to alleviate some of their struggle?"

Many of us in the Bay Area give up, avert our eyes, get angry or buy off our tired consciences with dimes and quarters. Lott decided to do something more.

She started small. This energetic young woman began making bag lunches for the homeless.

Today, Lott has gone beyond bag lunches. With help from her friends at work, she's running a small food voucher program for the homeless.

Instead of handing out quarters, Lott and her co-workers hand out laminated cards listing places where people living on the streets can get free food, shelter, medical care and showers. Along with each card comes a gift certificate for a meal at Burger King.

"Everybody loves hamburgers," said Lott.



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Lott calls her program HEART, for "Homeless Eat And Rest Tonight." Outwardly, it consists of a few pieces of paper -- but they're pieces of paper from the heart.
Ten weeks ago, when she realized she couldn't make enough bag lunches, Lott decided the men and women she was trying to help might need to know where they could find services. She printed hundreds of cards listing 10 agencies, and discovered an abundance of human goodness.

Someone in her company's graphics department volunteered to set the cards on nice paper and in attractive type. Someone else pointed out the cards would get soggy in the rain, so he laminated them.

Another colleague said Lott couldn't just go around handing out cards to homeless folks without offering something more substantial. So PriceWaterhouseCoopers donated money so she could buy Burger King gift certificates. St. Catherine's School in her parish in Burlingame helped buy the certificates, using its nonprofit status for a better rate.

"It's amazing how much love there is out there," said Lott, who also volunteers once a month at Vinny's Cafe, the St. Vincent de Paul Society's soup kitchen in South San Francisco.

Lott isn't motivated simply by the idea of feeding poor people.

"This card is an excuse to go up to the poor, find out what they need and let them tell their story," she said. "The homeless are as much a part of San Francisco life as we are as business people. They'll give us as much back as we give them if we'll stop and talk to them."

Lott said a homeless man named Sam volunteered Wednesday night to pass out her laminated cards to compatriots at the bus station.

Of course, many panhandlers aren't happy about receiving gift certificates and laminated cards instead of cash.

"I have to have money to get a motel room when it's raining," said Harry Grohmann, who was begging across the street from Lott's office with his dogs Sandy and Buffy. "I have to have a place for my dogs."



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"People want to help the poor," said Lott. "But they don't want to give money because they don't know if the money will be spent to support an addiction."
She wants to support the universal craving for human contact.

"I think the poor will always be with us, but there are two types of poor -- the financially poor and the poor in spirit who are just going to their jobs and are depressed," said Lott. "They can be helped as much as the homeless."

Behind Lott's desk in her plain, 19th-floor office on Market Street is a white board bearing the word "encouragement."

" 'Encouragement' comes from the French word for 'heart,' " said Lott. "If everybody would do things with encouragement and heart, it would come back a hundredfold."

Just listening to Lott was encouraging, especially in a cold spring in San Francisco, with more elderly and veterans on the streets and a heartless Hotel Council ad campaign urging people not to give to panhandlers.

As if people and panhandlers are different species. As if there isn't more to give than quarters.

As if one person can't do good.

Rob Morse's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. His e-mail address is [e-mail].


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/02/MN305973.DTL