This past weekend I took Frank to a dog park that’s by my apartment so he could go hang with some of his peeps. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, the sun was out and the air was nice and cool. This is normal for San Francisco but it’s still a treat in August for someone like me who grew up in the ridiculous Summer heat and humidity of the Midwest.
After being there for about a half-hour Frank was already tired and hanging out in the shade so I directed my short attention span elsewhere. The first thing that caught my eye was a woman playing fetch with her Labrador Retriever.
The dog seemed very floppy and was bouncing all around the ball after she threw it. It didn’t go right after the ball like most dogs, it would wait for just the right time to strike. Once it grabbed the ball it would bring it back to the woman, drop it by her feet and then jump out about ten to fifteen feet and wait for her to throw it again.
After watching for a few more minutes something clicked and I had to ask.
“Is your dog blind?” I asked hoping that her dog wasn’t just acting really weird.
“Yeah, she is.” she said back quickly while still throwing the ball for another fetch.
“That’s amazing how she fetches.” I said. “She loves it!” I then watched her go clumsily grab another ball in her mouth after sniffing around on the ground for a few seconds.
“Her name’s Sara and she lost her eyesight after being hit by a car. The person who hit her took her to the SPCA and no one wanted to adopt her because she was blind. They were going to put her to sleep and when we saw her we knew she was the one. We love her so much.”
I then watched Sara play fetch for about the next twenty minutes. What an awesome dog and a great story. Check out Sara playing fetch below or over on YouTube.
When I was in the thick of the Mo-sanity several people reached out to me and wanted to get involved. Some wanted to donate, some wanted to be part of the Catch-22 Crew Project and some wanted to offer their creative skills however they could help.
One of the creative people who got in touch is Mark Johnston who reached out to me via Mo’s YouTube account. He told me that he has an interest in shooting some video of the homeless in San Francisco and how he had already put together a short test video a year ago. I reached back out to him and we ended up connecting so he could meet Mo.
After all three of us met up one day in the city and got to know each other (and after one failed, windy shoot) Mark and Mo met up on another day without me to shoot another interview. Here’s the video that Mark ended up putting together, I think it gives a good sense of who Mo is and how he views the world.
Mark has an interesting way of telling stories and he does a great job putting together short, concise videos from literally hours of footage (which isn’t easy). I hope he continues to shoot video of Mo as a way to show more of what it’s like being homeless in San Francisco — I’m really happy with this first one.
Like the video? Don’t like the video? Give me your thoughts in the comments.
I finally have some time to sit down at my laptop and make some sense of all of the stuff that has happened with Mo over the past few weeks and it feels good. All of the things that happened with Mo and the fact that his story went viral all over the world is incredible, but it’s also tiring and slightly addictive. When the real time web decides that it’s chosen you to be the flavor of the day you better hold on because it’s one heck of a ride.
When Mo’s first video was rising up the ranks over on Reddit I was doing my best to keep up with the comments and to make sure that the story was being told the way it should be. There were lots of early critics with what I was doing with Mo but thanks to some of the past posts that I had on my blog (like this one and this one) and some of the earlier videos we had together (like when he got his new shoes) when the Internet trolls went digging into my story there was plenty there to back it up. All of this attention has helped Mo raise over $2,000 which means he’ll be off the streets and eating everyday for the next couple of months and it’s also created a new awareness around homelessness that’s affected thousands of people. There’s still a long way to go, but this was a great way to start.
Before too much time passed by I wanted to make sure to post up a good overview of how Mo’s story spread so I gave this story the respect it deserves. I’m going to do my best to recreate a step-by-step recap of Mo’s rise to international Internet fame through all of the experiences that have happened since I first posted Mo’s video on Reddit. Here goes nothing and let me know if there’s anything I forgot.
Mo Gets Some Video With A Flipcam
A few weeks back I gave Mo my flipcam so I could see what his day was like and find out what other homeless people’s stories were. After a few tries he ended up getting some really good interviews that chopped up and started posting online.
I posted the video around 3am and before I went to bed it already had several comments and upvotes, which means that people were really liking it. The more upvotes and comments you get the more visibility your post gets and when I woke up the video was already near the top of the video section. It eventually went to the top of the video section and even made it to the very front page of Reddit, which meant thousands of people were watching it.
Mo’s video was at or near the top of the r/Videos section on Reddit for over 24 hours.
When something like this happens you start to feel really funny. It’s exciting and you want it to keep on going higher and higher so you can get more and more attention. My video was at the top of the video section for over 24 hours and ended up making it’s way up to the very front page for a couple of hours. That means serious traffic and Mo’s video was well on it’s way to being viewed over 100k times.
At the height of the video getting viewed on Reddit Mo’s YouTube account was literally getting 1-2 subscribers every minute. Here’s what my email inbox looked like. It was nuts.
Mo’s YouTube channel was getting 1-2 subscribers per minute for most of the day.
I was also getting a lot of new Likes on Mo’s Facebook page. Every time I would log in to his account this is what the notifications would look like.
Mo’s Facebook page was getting lots of likes.
Mo Gets Covered In Business Insider
Soon after the Mo and Andrew’s interview became the most popular video on YouTube the press came calling (emailing to be exact). They sent me messages through Reddit, Facebook, Mo’s gmail account and YouTube. It was a crazy keeping up with it, but I was all about getting Mo’s story out there and they were excited to get more details.
The first site to cover Mo’s story was Business Insider.
The first real coverage we got was this post on Business Insider and it was posted even before they interviewed me. Once again, it was valuable that I had already blogged about Mo several times before his video went viral because it enabled anyone who wanted to write about Mo’s story could to go to my blog, grab some photos and quotes and not even have to talk to me before they posted something. That’s exactly what happened with this first post, the photo they used was taken from my blog and so was this quote:
“For some reason out of all the homeless people I’ve talked to, he’s stuck around long enough for us to become friends,” Hupfer wrote on the blog he’s using to chronicle his visits with Mo. A non-smoker, he convinced Mo to settle for a meal at Subway instead. They’ve been pals ever since.
Mandi Woodruff, the writer who posted this first story, interviewed me later on that day to get more of the story and then posted something else about Mo on the following Monday. In this second post Mandi went into deeper detail about me and Mo and was able to get more of the story from me since we talked on the phone. There are some good quotes in there and she linked to my blog, Mo’s donation page and other relevant content that I had out on the web. The media loves having all of that stuff to link off to and it’s great for letting the reader fill themselves in on the details that can’t be squeezed into the post.
Mo’s story was feature on Business Insider a second time a few days later.
Mo Gets Interviewed By Local TV in San Francisco
Friday quickly turned into a really crazy day and the interest just kept pouring in. Towards the end of the day I got a call from Chris Surdi who works at WePay, a local startup here in the Bay Area and the platform I was using for Mo’s donation page. They saw some of the buzz that Mo’s story was generating and wanted to see if they could help get it out into the media even more. Stories like this are PR gold for companies like WePay so it was really smart of them to help out. I didn’t even think about using them as a potential resource before they called but they pulled some strings and lined up some local media in SF to cover our story later that night.
Thanks to WePay we started getting some local media interest in SF.
After leaving work on that Friday I actually had plans for the weekend and was in a car on my way to Russian River with some friends when I got this email from Dave Russo, who works for ABC7 here in San Francisco. They wanted to interview me and Mo which meant I either skipped the interview for the weekend or stayed and tried to find Mo before that night so we could share his story on TV. I decided to stay so we turned around, dropped me off and I’m not sure how, but I found Mo not long after. A couple of hours after that we were interviewed down by the Caltrain station where we met and the segment about Mo was aired on the Friday night news and all weekend long.
That interview was a lot of fun and Mo really got a kick out of being in front of the camera. They only used 1% of what we shot, but that’s how local news goes. The camera guy was really cool and loved hearing about our story. He even posed for this great photo with Mo. I love this shot.
Mo cheesin’ it up and Andrew the camera guy. Mo was a natural in front of the camera.
Mo Goes From Local To National
After the crazy end of that week being topped off with our interview, the rest of the weekend was actually pretty quiet. I wasn’t sure if all of the news about Mo had died off and people had lost interest but I quickly found out that they hadn’t. The first thing that happened on Monday was the national ABC station asked me if they could post Mo’s video on their video player and interview me for a longer online story. Of course I said sure, an awesome reporter named Alexis Shaw did the interview and before you know it the madness was starting up all over again.
After playing all weekend in SF, Mo’s story quickly went from local to national.
Me and Mo looking good on the national ABC News website.
Mo on Huff Po.
Mo Gets Featured In An Awesome Video
Right around this same time a news group I had never heard called Right This Minute posted the best coverage of Mo’s story that I had seen up to that point. They’re a group of reporters who find interesting videos from YouTube and sit around and discuss them together in their newsroom. I didn’t know that they were going to create a video about Mo’s story but when I first saw it I was totally blown away. It was like I was watching a mini documentary on our relationship together and to be honest I found myself almost tearing up while watching it.
The way they brought it all together made the story even more powerful and whoever did the editing on it did an amazing job. Once again this video shows the value of having lots of other content for someone to dig into and use because they created the entire video without ever talking to me about it. That’s pretty awesome.
Me and Mo on Right This Minute — they did an amazing job telling our story.
Mo Gets Featured In Mashable
The next big thing to happen after this was when Matt Petronzio from Mashable emailed me and wanted to cover the story. Mashable is a huge source of tech and social media related news on the web and since Mo’s story included a lot of that he wanted to tell the story.
I was really happy when I saw this email come through from Mashable.
Instead of getting on the phone Matt sent me a handful of questions that I answered over email. Some writers like to do it that way because it takes up less time, they can quote me easier and they don’t have to record or take notes while chatting over the phone. Here are the questions he asked me and I answered them with everything I could and even ended up getting Mo on the phone so he could answer his questions himself. I sent over a lot of information but it’s always better to give writers a lot of information than not enough.
Matt sent me some questions over email, which can be easier for writers to deal with.
It took me a while to knock out all the answers the way I wanted but it was totally worth it. Getting Mo’s story on Mashable was huge and it was the coverage that people who already knew me noticed the most of because a lot of them check out Mashable on a daily basis or see the posts from there getting passed around on Twitter/Facebook.
When Mo’s story was on Mashable the madness started up all over again.
Mo Goes International
The Mashable post got Mo’s story in front of another huge audience and once it was live there were a lot of other posts that followed, including our first international coverage in France. I have no idea why his story spread over there, but it was really funny.
After being on Mashable Mo’s story somehow made it’s way over to France.
This particular story from France was really interesting because it’s the hometown newspaper of Dominique Lafaysse, a friend I work with who’s French. He was so surprised when I sent him a link to Mo’s story — it was really funny and what a small world. This was the only international coverage we had at that point, but there was more to come.
CNN Headline News Comes Knocking
Just when I thought that everything was done and no one else wanted to know about Mo I was emailed by a woman from Turner Broadcasting who told me that CNN Headline News (the HLN Network) was interested in covering Mo’s story. They needed permission from me to use our videos and images in the segment that they wanted to air the following day. I was really excited to hear from such a larger media source and quickly told her that they could use whatever they needed.
This was the first email that CNN sent me. They’re awful needy, huh?
The next day came and there was no segment about Mo. I emailed them to see what the dealio was and they said there was too much current news going on that day to fit in Mo’s segment but they said it would air the following day, which was Thursday. I flipped it on the next day and again there was no Mo segment to be found. I emailed them again and they told me the same thing. There was too much current news and that meant Mo’s segment was pushed out again, which they assured me wouldn’t happen again the next day, on Friday. They said they’d be in touch with more details soon and they weren’t kidding. I got this email the following morning.
Well, it looks like they’re really going to talk about Mo *and* have a live interview with me!
So, not only were they going to air the segment on Mo’s story but they also wanted to do a live interview with me. Of course I agreed and was once again excited to tell our story in front of an even bigger (and much more live) audience.
Friday quickly came and around 2pm I left the isocket office and headed up for the interview which was going to be done remotely from San Francisco. My buddy Henry Sun who is an amazing photographer met me there and he snapped some great pics of the action. I was interviewed via satellite which meant I was sitting in a room all by myself staring at a red light while answering live questions from an earpiece. To make it even better I was doing all of that in front of a super cheesy San Francisco skyline backdrop. You gotta love TV.
There’s nothing more fun (and weird) than doing a live interview via satellite.
Mo Gets More International Coverage
The interview went great and you can check out the video of it over here on the HLN website. Once that interview was over it was what I thought would be the end of the the week and half press blitz, but we I was wrong once again. For some reason the following week ended up being filled with all kinds of international (mainly French-speaking) media outlets covering Mo’s story. There was a a lot of interest in what Mo and I were doing and to this day I’m still not sure why. Large newspapers and TV stations covered it in France and I even did an interview with a reporter from Switzerland who wanted to know more (see a photo of the hard copy of the story below).
A media request from Switzerland. She called me at 4am for the interview.
Oh, no big deal. Just me and Mo in a Swiss newspaper.
I found most of the links to these stories through all of the new French speaking people who were starting to like Mo’s Facebook page. There was a flood of people who came in from France and it was actually kinda cool. They were very supportive and many of them donated to Mo’s cause. There were so many French speaking people who were now fans of Mo I even had Dom translate a status update for me so I could post it on his page for them.
Mo speaks French to his new Facebook fans.
Mo Gets Featured In Over 40 International Media Outlets
You can take a look at some of the international sites that Mo’s story was featured on below. Be sure to watch the video, it’s a really popular Frech TV show that covered Mo’s story (or at least that’s what Dom told me). I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I can tell they did a really good job sharing Mo’s story with the French.
The End Of The Buzz And Beginning Of The Catch-22 Crew
After a few days the international love affair (and the rest of the news interest) with Mo finally ended but there wasn’t any time to sit around. The very next day on Saturday Mo, me and some other friends put together the very first Catch-22 Crew which you can read more about over here (and I’ll tell you more about it later).
I think this is probably enough for one post and if you made it down this far, thanks for reading. This has been an amazing experience and I think there’s lots more to come when it comes to Mo’s story so stay tuned. Oh, and one more thing. Mo wanted to say thanks for everything you’ve done for him.
I had to link to this video that Right This Minute put together about Mo’s story. It’s amazing when you see it put together like that and they did an incredible job with telling the story in an interesting and honest way. Thanks to all of the team over there for doing this, Mo really appreciates it.
If you landed on this blog after watching the video, welcome. If you’d like to find out more about Mo you can check out his donation page over here or give directly below. Thanks for stopping by and leave a comment if you want me to tell Mo anything for you — I’ll be sure to pass along the message.
Mo really needed to go to a dentist. He’d been having some major pain from two of his teeth so I did some research on where he could get some help and came up with some options. After making a few phone calls and asking around I realized there are some decent places who could take care of him but the problem is that they all have long wait lists and don’t see anyone on an emergency basis.
As another option I called the office of one of my old dentists, Dr. Marquis, and talked to their superstar receptionist Katie (who I’ve always really liked) and told her the situation. After hearing about Mo, telling the rest of her team and having them reading some of the other posts I had written on this blog they said they would see Mo, free of charge. This made me feel good because I knew they’d take good care of him and I know all of the staff there were friendly and awesome.
As I’ve said before and I’m sure you’ve noticed from the photos of Mo, his teeth aren’t great to begin with and he’s lost a good amount of them already. Even though he didn’t want to lose any more of his teeth he was pretty much to to the point of wanting to pull out every, single one he has left if it meant he didn’t have to deal with the pain that he was having. Mo was getting desperate. I remember walking around with him by the train station on a windy night and he had to cover his mouth with something or pull his hoodie over his head because his teeth were so sensitive to the cold air he was breathing in. I don’t even want to imagine what that feels like.
After getting an appointment for Mo the only other thing I had to do was figure out how to find him so I could tell him about it. I hadn’t heard from him for a few days and I didn’t have any way to get in touch with him so there’s no way to know when I’ll see or hear from him next. The first appointment I had for him was on a Friday and even though I usually hear from him at least every other day I didn’t get a call from him before then, so that one had to be canceled. I told Katie how they needed to be flexible and they were totally cool with keeping a spot open for him. I remembered Katie telling me “You let Mo know that he can come in first thing Monday morning and we’ll take care of him.” Her awesome attitude made this whole situation a lot easier.
I finally ran into Mo a couple days later and let him know the good news about his appointment. When I saw him his teeth were hurting him so bad that he had wrapped a rag around his head to keep pressure on his head. It’s like something I’d seen in a cartoon and seeing him wear it made me laugh but he said it actually helped with the pain. Whatever works I guess.
I told him about his appointment at the dentist for the following day and his spirits were lifted immediately. I also told him to meet me in the morning on the corner by my apartment and I’d give him the directions. The next morning he showed up, I told him where to go and Dr. Marquis gave him a full dental exam and X-rays. The good news was that he doesn’t need to have any of his teeth extracted, he only has a couple of bad cavities that can be drilled out. The bad news was that he was going to have to wait another week to get it done.
Oh, and I guess I should mention that Dr. Marquis is also going to fill his cavities for free. How amazing is that? What an incredible blessing for Mo.
So this Thursday I’m going to head to the dentist with him and we’re going to get his teeth taken care of. Thanks for all of your help, prayers and gifts you’ve all sent my way for Mo and keep it up — there’s still a lot he needs help with.
—- I’m going to set up a donation page for Mo here soon, but if you feel like you want to give something to help him out you can PayPal the money to ryan.hupfer-at-gmail.com. I’ll email you back with details on what your money will be going to so you can keep in the loop. One thing I’ve been trying to help him out with is staying off the streets at night, which costs $10/night. He rents out a bathroom in a hotel and stays in there, which isn’t the greatest option in the world but it’s warm, it’s safe and he can stay cleaned up.
I haven’t heard from Mo since last Thursday and I’m not sure why. I know it hasn’t been that long but it seems like a long time since I was seeing him or he was calling me nearly every day for the past few weeks. I’m not stressing about it at this point (that doesn’t usually help anything) but I am starting to wonder where he’s been. I’m sure I’ll see him sometime this week and I’ll let you all know when I do.
Last Friday when I got home there was a box sitting outside my door. It’s from my friends at Runners Forum and is the first care package that’s been sent from someone who was moved by Mo’s story to the point of action. I know that inside of the box is a pair of size twelve shoes that would be a much needed upgrade to the worn out and janky shoes that Mo is wearing now. The box is still taped up and sitting in my kitchen and I’m not even thinking of opening it until Mo is right there with me. But to be honest, at this point I’m not sure when that’s going to be.
It’s crazy to think about but I’m not sure when I’ll see Mo, or if I’ll ever see him again. I’m praying that I see him soon but there’s no guarantee that’s going to happen. I guess that’s the risk we all take when we step outside of our comfort zones to do what we feel is right. It’s not safe, it can get really messy and our expectations might not be fulfilled the way we want them to be. Does it suck sometimes? Oh yeah it does. But that’s not going to stop me and I hope it doesn’t stop any of you either.
I know this sounds a little weird, but bear with me. Today I was in a new part of SF and decided to stop by Taco Bell to grab myself come tasty fresco style chicken soft tacos and a dewski. I was also hoping that I would be able to use their bathroom while I was there, too . Kill two birds with one stone, you know?
It was a small dining area and I didn’t see any bathroom inside so I asked the nice woman taking my order where the closest one was. She told me that they have one but it’s outside and she’ll buzz me into it once I’m out there. Interesting, I thought but I rolled with it and went outside and waited by the gate. She buzzed me in a few seconds later and what I saw next was so mind blowing I had to go back for a second time and shoot some video of it.
I’ll warn you, there’s a quick shot of the toilet that’s nearly overflowing, but what got me was the sheer amount of graffiti that was on every wall, including the ceiling. When I went in again to shoot this video there was a guy walking out with his younger son and in broken English he said, “Not good bathroom. Really not good for kids.” as he shook his head and walked out of the gate.
I’ve seen a lot of bad bathrooms in my day but for some reason this one stuck with me, almost to the point to where I had to appreciate it like a work of art. It takes a lot of time and effort to make a bathroom look that bad and for some weird reason I felt like sharing it. Also, the fact that it’s part of a Taco Bell/KFC restaurant and not just some abandoned, run down public bathroom at a park, beach or truck stop that has tons of foot traffic takes this gated bathroom to a whole new level.
I guess you never know what you’re going to get from me in this blog. One day I’m helping the homeless and the next I’m showing you videos of disgusting bathrooms. Welcome to a small snapshot of my brain.
For those of you who were introduced to my homeless friend Mo yesterday I mentioned that he sleeps next to a trashcan on the sidewalk. Yesterday I woke him up at his spot and we grabbed some coffee at the train station before I headed into work. Well, today I saw him sleeping there again (sometimes he gets kicked out by cops so I don’t see him) and I wanted to show you how he looks when we meet up in the morning. I’m not doing this to make you feel sorry for him or to shock you, this is just the reality he lives in.
It breaks my heart every time I see him laying there but I know it’s much more complicated than simply getting him cleaned up and getting him off the streets. When I woke him up he was in his usual good spirits and seemed happy to see me. I told him how I wrote about him on my website yesterday and he didn’t seem to care much. But, when I told him that one of you offered to donate him some new shoes he perked up quickly and seemed really excited.
“Who’s going to give me shoes?” he asked.
“A guy named Greg who heard your story and wants to help you out.” I said.
I didn’t know what size he wore and I still need to tell Greg so he can send me the right ones. Greg also wanted to know what colors Mo liked so he could pick out the best ones possible. When I told Mo about that he thought it was pretty funny.
“What size do you want?” I asked while he was still waking up on the sidewalk.
“Any size!” he screamed at me playfully as he looked up while laughing at me with a smile on his face. He’s still got a great smile, but he’s missing several teeth.
“No, what size do you actually wear?” I asked again. “He wants to get you shoes that actually fit you.”
“Twelves!” he yelled back up at me. I don’t think he’s been able to make a choice on the sizes of things he gets for a long time. He paused for a second, moved his foot from beneath the blankets that were piled on top of him and pointed to his heel that was sticking out of his socks.
“You got some socks, too?” he said as he smiled and pointed at the hole.
“We’ll work on getting you some of those too, Mo.” I said back.
At that point he stood up and told me that the motel that I sometimes pay for him to stay at is going to let him stay for an entire week for the price of one night. I’m not sure how he pulled it off, but people really like Mo and he has a good amount of people who are pulling for him. I didn’t have any cash on me so I went to the ATM and he trailed slowly behind me as I pulled out the money and handed it to him. When Mo’s in the train station he needs to be careful because the police don’t like seeing him in there hustling, but he still goes because it’s the best place for him to charge the probation GPS monitor that’s always around his ankle.
What I gave him wasn’t much, but for the amount I spend on Starbucks in a week it’ll keep him from sleeping outside on a sidewalk next to that damn trashcan and that makes me happy.
“You won’t see me for a week.” Mo told me after I gave him the money for the motel.
“Good, I’m getting sick of seeing you anyway.” I said as I laughed and smacked him on his back. He has my number so he’ll call me and I’m more than happy to not see him for a week if it means he’s chilling in a motel.
There’s something different about this guy and for some reason out of all the homeless people I’ve talked to he’s stuck around long enough for us to become friends. Where we’ll end up I don’t know, but I’m going to continue to be there for him as long as he lets me. If Mo’s story moves you to the where you would like to help out, let me know and we’ll figure something out. Personally, I’d like to keep him in the motel as long as I possibly can but there are plenty of other things he needs help with, too (he needs to go to the dentist, new clothes, etc.). I’m also thinking about starting a website/blog just for him so that I can get his story out to more people in a better way, but I’ll need some help to pull it off. If you have some ways that you want to help, think about it and let me know.
—- Thanks to all of you who have shown some love for Mo through your messages, likes, emails and giving. I know what Mo really appreciates it and I do, too.
I would especially like to thank Greg Oppman and Runners Forum in Indiana for reaching out to me about getting Mo some shoes (and now socks). Thanks to these guys Mo is going to have shoes that actually fit him for the first time in years.
What do you do when a homeless man or woman asks you for something? Do you help them out or do you just keep walking faster while looking the other way? Homeless and needy people are everywhere and most of us aren’t quite sure what to do about them. In the days of iPods, iPhones and Androids it’s never been easier to ignore these them although I’m not sure that’s the best thing to do.
About a month ago I was walking through the train station on my way back home from work. It was around 8pm and I was feeling tired from a long day of using my brain. Stephanie was doing something that night and I was starving so I started heading toward the Subway sandwich shop that’s in the station.
On my way over to grab my sandwich I get approached by an older looking black guy who was obviously homeless. He had a wide 6’2″ frame and was wearing old, worn out clothes that consisted of dirty jeans that were splitting up the sides from the bottom, a grungy black hooded sweatshirt and a light beige jacket that looked darker than it should have been. After giving him a look up and down I could tell that these just weren’t his clothes, they were also his blankets while he slept on the streets at night. Surprisingly as he got closer to me he didn’t smell at all, which from what I’ve experienced in San Francisco is pretty rare.
His beard was full, graying and had grown long enough at the bottom of his chin it could be braided if it wasn’t all clumped together. His hair was balding in the front and had longer dreads in the back. This wasn’t the first time that I had been asked questions by a random homeless guy and I actually like talking to them most of the time. For some reason this guy seemed different from from the beginning and as he started asking me questions he was actually pretty funny.
“Hey man, you have any cigarettes?” he asked me.
“Nope, I don’t smoke but I can grab you some food if you want. I’m about to hit up some Subway and I’m more than happy to grab you a sandwich if you want one.”
I’m always happy to offer someone food if they’re hungry, especially if I just met them. I feel like it’s a great way to get to know them and it gives you some time to talk with them while they order.
While we ordered our food I learned that his name is Mo, he’s on probation from selling some pills to someone on the street and that he likes to put all of the veggies on his Subway sandwiches (I call that “running it through the garden”). He also really likes the Subway cookies (oatmeal and chocolate chip) and sometimes the women who work there will give them to him for free if he asks nicely enough.
We talked for another few minutes or so and I ended up giving him some money to go get cleaned up at a cheap motel that’s nearby. I had no idea if I would ever see him again, but we’ve actually met up several times since then and I’m doing my best to be there for him when he needs something. This morning I ran into him on my way to the train station. He was sleeping under a couple of blankets on the sidewalk next to a trashcan that was right up against a fence. I woke him up, he gave me a hug and I bought him some coffee at the train station before I headed off to work.
I’m not sure what Mo has planned for the day, but I’m sure I’ll see him again tonight or tomorrow. I’m not sure what’s going to come of our relationship, but it’s grown to the point to where I feel like it’s good to share it with all of you so you can follow along our journey together. I really want to help him out and he’s got a good heart, but he’s got a hard life and there are a million reasons why he won’t make it another month on the streets. I’m hoping that I can eventually help Mo get back on his feet but for now I’m ok with just being his friend.
I feel blessed to have met him and I’ll be sure to keep you updated on how he’s doing. If you feel like there’s a way that you could help him out, let me know and I’ll be sure to let him know. He’s an awesome guy, he just needs some help.
