SRO Tenants Boost the Neighborhood
Marilyn Chan, 76-year-old resident of the Jefferson Hotel, came to the Tenderloin about 25 years ago and is “not going anywhere.” The Jefferson is run by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and is part of the city’s permanent supportive housing program.
“I love this neighborhood. It’s a mix of diversity, a mix of everybody.”
As we were walking to Boedekker Park, Marilyn stopped to talk to a Pit Stop worker. “Keep up the good work,” she said. “if you miss a spot… I’ll let you slide!”
She leaned over and whispered “I tease people like that. And they don’t mind!”
Marilyn’s story is a simple one. Born to Chinese parents, she grew up in the Crenshaw area of LA, which instilled in her a love of people and natural contentment. Her mother worked at a drug store and her father worked as the truck driver for a Chinese grocery store. At 25 she married her neighbor and moved with him to Seattle, then San Francisco. The marriage didn’t work out and she stayed in the city on her own.
I asked Marilyn if she had been afraid to face the city by herself after a divorce. She shrugged. “I just got to know a lot of people around.”
Marilyn did office work – data entry and things like that – but didn’t make enough to have her own place, so she stayed with her sister-in-law, then in shelters, and eventually moved into the Jefferson Hotel, where she has been for 15 years. She came to be friends with the people at St. Anthony’s and the people on the streets (“I have a lot of brothers from another mother”). The men at St. Anthony’s Father Alfred recovery program would ask her to come to their graduations because, for many, she was the only person that talked to them. She would eagerly oblige.
“You know me,” she said (we had met two days prior). “I talk to everybody!”
“I talk to everybody and I don’t judge nobody. That’s how it should be.”
I asked Marilyn if she had ever wanted to marry again or have more money. She shrugged again and said “I’m always content.”.
At 76 years old, Marilyn spends her day out and about in the Tenderloin. She starts at the Saint Francis Living Room (“I love the people there”), then often goes to City Hope Cafe (“they are such cool people there I love ‘em”). She goes over to St Anthony’s to use their computers for emails or printing, and to the Curry Senior Center, or visits her friend on 3rd and Market (“He’s homeless. He’s also my brother from another mother.”)
Marilyn loves living in the Tenderloin because of its convenience and central location. “When I walk around, the people say ‘Hi, Mama.’ You know what it is? They’re respecting their elders.”
When I asked Marilyn who the important people in her life are, she sat silent and serious for a few moments. “I don’t really have nobody. I just know a lot of people.”
During the 30 minutes we were sitting at Boedekker park, Marilyn shouted hello to two friends through the gates. The second time, she said, “I don’t remember how I met him. But we love to tease each other.”
Julia Zrihen often writes about SRO tenants
