San Francisco

SF Man Shines Shoes, Sleeps in Streets in San Francisco's Tough Economy

Lester Harris is a man of redemption - a healer of sorts. Day after day at his Union Square shoeshine stand, he applies his restorative powers to loafers, dress shoes and boots — transforming them from faded, weathered shoes into gleaming vessels.

"When I put a shine on that shoe," Harris boasted, "you will scratch your head and say that sure was a beautiful shine."

For years, Harris has been shining shoes at his stand just steps from San Francisco's Market and Powell Streets, where tourists line-up to ride the cable cars. His clientele include business people, tourists and droves of shoppers.

But unlike his fellow working folk who head home after a long day on the job, Harris has no home to return to. 

"I've been on the streets about 25 years altogether total," Harris revealed, his voice animated like a firery preacher's. "I stay wherever I can stay. I'm staying from one doorstep to the next."

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Joe Rosato/NBC Bay Area
Lester Harris has been homeless for the last 25 years, going home to the streets after a day's work.

Harris has slept beneath bridges and in doorways. He has braved the cold San Francisco nights, taking shelter on hard concrete and in bushes. Unable to afford an apartment, he sometimes sleeps on a rotating network of friends' couches. 

"You know what keeps me going?" Harris asked. "Coming to work, getting up every day and doing something - working, shining these shoes. That's what keeps me going and what keeps my spirits up."

Harris counts himself among San Francisco's working poor — workers whose salaries won't come close to denting the rent of an apartment in the city's skyrocketing economy. A native San Franciscan, Harris lives in the city of his birth — inside its 49 square miles, yet just outside its embrace.

"I'm a hard working person," Harris said. "I work hard every day. But I don't have a place to live and that's not fair."

Every day, fellow homeless friends come by Harris' shoeshine stand to jaw about the state of the city. They commiserate about waiting lists for housing, the wretched conditions of some Tenderloin's SRO hotels and the swelling number of homeless on the street. 

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Joe Rosato/NBC Bay Area
Lester Harris works every day shining shoes on San Francisco's Market Street.

"We never had homelessness like this, it's getting really bad," one friend noted. 

"If each one of those billionaires donated a million dollars," another said, "that might help some of the homeless."

Harris nodded; "it's time to get off these streets and get in to a place of our own, that we can call our own place."

According to a recent national survey, a person would need to earn $216,000 a year to comfortably afford a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. That's a lot of shoes. 

"You gotta be like Curry to make the rent" Harris said with a boisterous laugh that quickly morphed into contemplation. He shook his head, causing his braids to swing like a set of tassels on a pair of loafers. 

Harris tried driving a cab. But he preferred shining shoes because he liked meeting people. With this crisp suit and easy laugh, few customers picked-up on the true story of his meager existence in the City by the Bay.

"I never thought that I would be here and homeless," Harris said guiding a new customer into the chair and taking-up his shoe brush. "Never thought I'd be homeless in this city."

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