My Friend Jenny

I recently moved to SF. It's been mostly great. The food and drink are diverse, the people are ever-interesting, and the weather is far better than the Wisconsin winters I'm used to.

One thing that really gets me down is the state of homelessness in the city. A lot has been written about certain people in the tech industry having ridiculous perspectives and I don't want to rehash that.

I'll sum my feelings up by saying for a city/area that prides itself on being so productive, I feel that very little is done to help people stuck in cycles of poverty.

Last Thursday night however, my friend Jenny Houser surprised me.

Jenny works for Given Goods Company, an e-commerce company selling high-quality products with a tangible, social impact. I consider Jenny to be a compassionate person but she went above and beyond my expectations last week.

Back to Thursday, she and I were walking home on a drizzly night. We passed a homeless man huddled under a bookstore awning, avoiding the rain and reading Harry Potter. Jenny stopped and asked how he liked the book.

While I sympathize for the homeless, I find myself all too often ignoring them by default. This man was quietly keeping to himself and Jenny took the time to reach out. She told him she liked Harry Potter as well.

His name is Jamie. He's very similar to you and I, but fallen on hard times. He came to SF from Alabama with his partner in the late 90s. They lived happily together for years until his partner's passing. To keep busy he tries to read a book a day. He likes book seven of the Harry Potter series the most and cried when Dobby died.

Jamie shared more about himself than most of my friends have with me. He has been on the street for about three years. He's incredibly literate and seemingly very happy. His biggest concern is finding food daily so Jenny offered to buy him dinner. Just a hamburger and fries was all he asked for; it cost her $10.

The very next day we ran into Jamie walking on 18th street. He gave us hugs and thanked us. I can honestly say I look forward to running into Jamie and buying him all the burgers he wants in the future.

Jenny taught me that while it's easy to ignore people who have fallen on hard times, sometimes a few minutes and a hamburger can make all the difference.