Exceptions to the Rule?

The SF Chronicle covers Father Louie Vitale's Gubbio Project in their "Shame of the City" series.

For those of you who don't know, this guy Vitale, is like a living saint. I've met Father Vitale on a number of occassions. No hypocrisy oozing from his veins. I have much respect for his works in SF's Tenderloin neighborhood.

The TL is one of those forgotten neighborhoods in Frisco and it's been like that for years. I mean, really, things you wouldn't tolerate in your neighborhood are happening in the TL...right now. Makes little difference if it's daytime or nighttime. Go to the TL and ask some folks who have been there for a few decades and they'll tell you that every mayoral candidate promises change and falls asleep at the wheel once they get into office. Think I'm joking? Go there and see for yourself.

In the early 90s, I moved to the TL the same reason that most people do...I had no other choice. Some might say that I stayed longer than I should have but it was there that I became inspired to be part of the solution. It's because of people like Father Vitale and before him Father Alfred Boedekker that I keep some modicum of respect for religious institutions and the resource that a church can be for those who don't have a whole hell of a lot. I stayed longer than I probably should have while gaining first-hand knowledge of what life is like for those living on the margins of what we call civilization. Nonetheless, having the wherewithal to do so, I bounced (left that place)!

Ever noticed how every poor neighborhood in the US has an overabundance of liquor stores and churches? Hmmmm. Where is Arsenio these days?

Where did I go? Where you would expect a young man from the Mission w/a little cash (not a lot) to go...back to the Mission. Took up residence at a clean little apartment above the corner of 16th and Capp Street and learned that the TL isn't only forgotten neighborhood. That corner was like any hot corner in the TL where people freely sell and use drugs, violence was the order of the day, clean cut men drove in from other parts of the City to "help" women support their habits and the down-and-out slept on the streets or lucked up on enough $$$ to get a room for the night. Oh...and that was during the dot.com boom when everything was supposed to be hunky dory.

Seems to me, that other neighborhoods could use a Father Vitale. I say, let him criss-cross this City and have more of these churches, mosques, and synagogues open up their doors to the needy. Hate to be crass but c'mon. Institutions such as St. Boniface are exceptions to the rule.

I don't mind being proven wrong though...