If your friend is homeless, you can co-sign.

by Carol Harvey

Helped by her friend, Scott Bravmann, Carolin Jack has escaped the fluorescent glare of the Disney Store on Union Square moving three blocks away to a clean, well-lighted room South of Market in downtown San Francisco. 

I visited for a May 7 housewarming.  A lovely afternoon sun beamed onto the soft rug.  A tiny tiger bounced over my feet into the kitchenette crying for food in a nearly human voice.  Then Carolin's "little girl," ran to her place below the sunlit window and sat regarding her, Scott and myself in bemused surveillance.  Carolin said, "She's phasing herself in here very cautiously, not quite sure how she feels about it."

This was the home Carolin hoped, worked, and saved for the last five years.

Carolin sat on her bedroll in the corner, her colorful blankets and comforter neatly folded.  Her sleeping/living room and kitchen, with TV set and chair, are clean and tidy.  A dentist who gave her a raincoat may get her a real bed.

Carolin said she washed with alcohol wipes for a year without the luxury of a bath.   Scott smiled, "She finished a bottle of bubble bath in two days."  Though she was always clean, her skin had kept that  "grimy" look a homeless person can't quite wash off.  "Water felt odd to my skin," she said, looking well-scrubbed and comfortable.

I never saw her without headgear, her tasseled wool hat and earmuffs warding off the wind.  Her face looked thinner, more relaxed, her eyes brighter, her color high.

Out of her wheelchair, Carolin scooted on hands and knees across the rug moaning with osteoarthritis.  This week she fell down a flight of stairs lifting her wheelchair to the elevator, the reasons Scott chose this apartment.  He looked askance describing the realtor's discouraging words, "The front elevator is broken a lot."

Scott talks animatedly of jumping a series of rental agent's barriers which made Carolin's move-in hard.

When I met Scott on Union Square, he played with the cats quietly, boyish and reserved, wary of me.  Today he was animated, outgoing, and informative.  He seemed pleased with this accomplishment.

Looking at Scott's happy face, I flashed to another day in the past at Griffith Park in L.A. I recalled the impassive mug of a large man who grabbed at my bike as I plummeted downhill past his broken VW Bug.  He needed wheels.  I was an object.  His was the face of cruelty: Flat, expressionless, inhuman.

Scott's kind face was warm and communicative, open and trusting.  I told him he was my hero.  He said, "It's what a normal person would do." 

Scott's alarm grew in February during the hard rains. Harassed by police, hauled to Court on Quality of Life crimes for sidewalk sleeping, cats impounded by Animal Care and Control, Carolin was living in a group of five.  Her "protectors" stole $800.00 panhandled dollars she saved for rent.

Scott found three apartments on Craig's list.  This one offered a two weeks' free rent special.  Move-in costs included $725.00 first month's rent and a month's rent deposit plus $225.00.  Animals were allowed.  There was a ground floor elevator.  The tub and protective buzzer system were bonuses.  "Carolin said 'Yes" without hesitation."

In the open rental market, the building had 5 or 6 vacancies.  "The elevator's cramped, and the neighborhood's not the greatest," said Carolin.

Scott presented himself and his credentials, dropping off the application with excellent credit report attached.  He has a PhD and a good job.  ("I only flaunt my PhD when I need to impress somebody.")   They said, "If your friend's homeless, you can co-sign."  His income plus Carolin's $800 a month Social Security was enough.  He never concealed she was homeless, and that her disability mandated an wheelchair accessible elevator. 

They claimed 24 hours to process the application.  The agent didn't call back.  "During the first week they several times changed their story about why I didn't have the apartment."   The agent confessed if it wasn't for Scott, there would be no problem.  They said they couldn't verify Carolin's income. 

Scott was relentless.  He was going to research Disability rights.    Finally, they said, "The problem is we haven't met Carolin."  Scott said, "Why does the big corporate entity have to meet her?  But, okay, we'll play by their rules."

The agent kept him and Carolin waiting an hour in her wheelchair outside the building.  He phoned on his cell complaining Market was full of marchers protesting the anti-Israel West Bank occupation.  He couldn't drive six blocks from 3th to 9th street.  "The underground would have taken 7 minutes," said Scott.  "He could have somersaulted here faster."

On arrival, the agent warned, "You can't have all your friends live here." and, "Will you be storing things?"  Homeless people provide crash pads for their friends and, of course, collect junk. 

He turned to leave.  Scott said, "Aren't you going to let her look at the apartment?" 

When a friend wheeled a shopping cart with Carolin's belongings, the manager, disturbed by the man's appearance, complained the cart was scuffing up his lobby.  Scott said, "I informed him the ceramic floor was harder than rubber wheels and could not be damaged."  The manager also suggested Carolin's friend banged her wheelchair against the narrow passageway wall and knocked plaster loose.

"When I put something on the windowsill, the manager bangs on my door, peeking in to see if there are people in here," said Carolin, "or whether I'm tossing my keys to a friend outside."

The buzzer system only opens one of the two locked front doors, so, if the elevator isn't working, Carolin can't get down to let people in.  She betrays concern that she is not safe from her thieving "friends," comforted that the double buzzer system means, "You can't get into this building easily."

Carolin knows she can't pay rent and live on $800 a month.  An agency provided $600 from emergency funds.  They are applying to other agencies.  Scott has got her food stamps . 

Without an ambulatory "respectable" benefactor fronting the money and running  "interference," a disabled homeless person would not stand a chance of charging the gauntlet to get themselves housed. Carolin has that person in a hero named Scott Bravman.