A woman answered the door, and, prompted by their questions, revealed a laundry list of problems: she recently had been robbed and raped, and was being evicted for the $2,000 she owed in rent.

“Do you have a place to go?” one of the men inquired.

The woman, a mother of a 14-year-old girl, shook her head and asked who they were.

“We are from Eviction Assistance,” said the man with the plaid tie, Deputy Diego Perez.

“We are from the Sheriff’s Office,” added Deputy Joe Crittle, revealing what their dress and vehicle were intended to disguise. “Is that a surprise?”

“Kind of? Sort of?” the woman said with a smile, accepting a brochure with referrals for housing, social services and legal assistance.

“All right, good luck to you,” Perez said.

With that, the two men went back to their minivan and moved on to the next eviction site on their list.

ONE OF A KIND

Together, Crittle and Perez form the one-and-a-half-man Eviction Assistance Unit of the Sheriff’s Department.

The unit, according to the Sheriff’s Department, is the first and only one of its kind in California.

“The Sheriff’s Department was not designed — none of them are in the state — to be a housing facilitator or temporary shelter facilitator,” Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi told The San Francisco Examiner. “And that is exactly the role that we have attached.”

On weekdays, except for Wednesdays, the two men drive to anywhere from one to a couple of dozen residences in The City going through court-ordered evictions. These include evictions related to the Ellis Act, nonpayment, owner move-ins or foreclosures. The unit is there to assess tenants’ situation and help them find a place to go.

On Wednesdays, when the Sheriff’s Department carries out evictions, the assistance unit’s job is to patrol and advise deputies of potential problem situations.

“There aren’t any [eviction assistance units] anywhere. From what we know, we’re the only ones in the state,” Crittle said. “We got a call from Cook County, Fla. They were all interested. There have been other agencies that have wanted to do a ride-along.”

OFFERING SERVICES

Crittle, 52, who has worked in the unit full time for almost a decade, said they walk a “fine line.”

“We do not help people not to be evicted,” he said. “We refer people to services that they might not know exist.”

The team regularly refers people to services that are offered through programs such as the Eviction Defense Collaborative on Market Street; Tenderloin Housing Clinic on Hyde Street; and Swords to Plowshares on Howard Street, which they make sure is open before recommending it to an evicted veteran.

The deputies say they’ve seen it all, but never know what they’re up against.

“If you’ve seen the show ‘Hoarders,’ that is literally what we do,” said Perez, 30. “Open the door and there’s feces piled up, they’re using the toilet as a sink, there’s bedbugs jumping off furniture. It’s to the point where it becomes almost a hazmat situation. I get out and have to burn my clothes, carry a can of Lysol.”

The scenes, according to Crittle, can resemble a Hollywood horror movie.

“Then we have the little old lady with newspapers from 50 years ago and she has dead cats that she couldn’t bear to part with,” Crittle said. “And the worst instance — two dead bodies on the same day.”

The mark of a successful day, according to Crittle, is making contact with the evictees.

“It doesn’t matter to me what the contact is,” Crittle said. “I would prefer something that would actually help them versus a 5150 [involuntary psychiatric hold], but we get them the help they need, whether it was the help they wanted or not. That is the whole point.”

THE GROWING ISSUE

The Eviction Assistance Unit was the brainchild of Mirkarimi’s predecessor, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, in 1980 and follows a tradition of San Francisco sheriffs who hesitated to carry out court-ordered evictions. In 1977, Sheriff Richard Hongisto served five days in jail for refusing to execute a massive eviction order at the International Hotel in the former Manilatown — a fight that led to The City’s rent-control laws and many of its tenant protections.

Over time, the workload of the unit has grown. Last year, the department posted 1,318 notices to vacate, executed 998 evictions and provided about 2,040 referrals to those evictees, Mirkarimi noted in a letter to Mayor Ed Lee dated Oct. 3. The sheriff, who expanded the unit from one deputy to the one-and-a-half he has now, requested a full-time clinical outreach worker for the unit in the 2013-14 budget.

Perez spends half of his time on the unit and the other half processing paperwork, such as restraining orders in the civil division.

“Based on trend, our EAU staffing is insufficient and ill-equipped to assist qualified individuals and families who may be at risk of becoming homeless,” Mirkarimi wrote in the letter.

And there are other needs. The unit’s minivan, equipped with a Central Police Station scanner, law enforcement gear and the ability to transport evictees, has far outlasted police vehicles that normally stay in circulation for three to four years.

“She’s falling apart,” Crittle said. “The unit has evolved over the years but it’s pretty much the same thing.”

‘SAD STORIES’

On the October afternoon , Crittle and Perez made 10 stops — two in the Tenderloin, one in the South of Market neighborhood, two in the Mission and five in the Bayview.

At one Bayview apartment, Perez offered assistance in Spanish. Crittle took stickers from his clipboard and gave them to the children.

As they headed back to their van, one of the male tenants followed them out to ask one more question and thank them for their help.

“Muchísimas gracias,” the evictee said, meaning “many thanks.” “Gracias por la ayuda,” he added, which translates to, “Thank you for the help.”

Perez said that although their services are not always utilized, the people they assist always say thank you.

“Because we allow them to vent,” he said. “Nobody wants to hear their sad story, because all evictions are sad stories.”

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/sf-sheriffs-department-offers-unique-eviction-assistance/Content?oid=2622198

Tilden is a small town, and with 235 students in pre-K through 12th grades, the school is small, too — even after enrollment jumped 42 percent in a year and a half.

Outside, students can see the reason: drilling rigs in the distance. At recess, they run, slide and swing at a new playground built with corporate donations, a list brimming with names including Petrohawk Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Rush Truck Centers.

“I don’t know any of these kids, just the ones that are kinfolk,” said Arthur Villareal, 59, finishing breakfast with his son and grandson before a recent morning assembly. “A lot of them are new people that moved in.”

When he graduated in 1971, his senior class of 13 was the largest in the school’s history. His son’s class numbered 24. His grandson’s will be bigger.

“Our town is booming,” chimed fourth-grader Cotton Harris, 10, smiling at the passing trucks. “You just hear them roar by.”

The pursuit of oil and gas in the Eagle Ford Shale has picked up the pace in dozens of formerly quiet rural communities in a wide arc around San Antonio. But nowhere is the impact on schools greater than here, in one of the least-populated school districts in its path.

“That one that came in — it will have to be a bigger bus next year,” McMullen County Independent School District Superintendent Dave Underwood, 36, said over the noise. “Because it’s full.”

The district added a school bus last fall, bringing the total to seven. Some students take hourlong rides from other counties, like 10th-grader Sarah White, 16, whose father transferred her to the 1A district from the much larger Pleasanton ISD in Atascosa County last fall. She gets on a bus at 6:30 a.m..

“In a small town, everyone wants to be friends with everyone,” she said. “I’m also still getting used to more agriculture activities here. We just had a tractor race in the cafeteria. It was kind of strange, but interesting. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Most superintendents of the 22 school districts in the Eagle Ford counties closest to San Antonio point to a lack of housing as the reason their enrollments have grown only slightly, if at all.

An exception is the Frio County community of Dilley, where the school district saw a 7 percent enrollment increase in one year, to 992 students. City Administrator Melissa Gonzalez said contractors have made recent inquiries about building single-family homes.

But there’s a housing crunch in Tilden, too. A key reason more energy industry workers are enrolling their children here is proudly displayed on the school’s marquee: “EXEMPLARY SCHOOL DISTRICT,” the Texas Education Agency‘s highest rating.

Behind the school, McMullen ISD has built nine “teacheridges” over the years, employee cottages with as many as three bedrooms, including two added since 2010. It leases some to students’ families, and John Ray, 51, a pipeline inspector for Hatch Mott MacDonald, is one of the fortunate few.

After five months of house hunting, he was able to move his wife and third-grade daughter from West Monroe, La., into a teacheridge and thinks $600 a month is a good deal.

“It was just hard to find a place, but I didn’t want to live in a trailer for the next couple of years,” Ray said. “If there was more housing here it would probably be filled up as fast as they could build (it). But when this little boom is over, it’ll be a ghost town here.”

Others in Tilden share his assumption that busts inevitably follow drilling booms, but a University of Texas at San Antonio study estimates the Eagle Ford play will drive regional employment — and higher demand for housing and schools — through 2025.

Just 50 more students would max out the Tilden school‘s capacity, Underwood said. There are no immediate plans for new classrooms, but the board has asked voters to approve almost $12 million in bond debt on May 12 to address growth and safety issues, including connecting the school’s two buildings with an enclosed walkway so it can use a single entrance.

The drop-off point for school buses will be moved behind the school, away from traffic, operations manager Dale Patterson said.

Highway fatalities have increased with the traffic. McMullen County had only one in 2009, but there were four in 2010 and three in 2011. Driver fatigue has been the main factor, Department of Public Safety Trooper Clint Walker said.

Periodic sweeps with 22 extra state troopers are targeting commercial vehicle violations in counties affected by the drilling boom “to minimize tragic events happening,” said DPS Cpl. Charlie Ramirez, who oversees patrols in McMullen, Live Oak and Bee counties.

“No traffic accidents with students yet. We’ve been very fortunate, “ Underwood said, crossing his fingers and knocking on a wood classroom door.

The traffic is “crazy,” said Oralia Hasette, 76, a janitor who has worked at the school for two decades.

“There’s a lot of people in town now,” she said, adding, “I like it. At least you can sit down and see cars and trucks passing through.”

Even counting a couple of new restaurants, Tilden has only half a dozen businesses. The older ones have evolved with the times, like Max’s Cafe and Grocery, which offers eight motel rooms and a gift shop.

“Oil drilling is a great thing,” said owner Maximo Quintanilla Jr., 63, who also is a county commissioner. “Overall, it’s made ranchers a lot busier.”

“Gotta make the money while you can, because it ain’t going to be here long,” interjected lunch patron Josh Wood, 23, who works for Macy’s Rentals, which supplies generators to drilling rigs.

“Well, you’ve got to take the good with the bad,” Quintanilla said, glancing out a window at the trucks on Texas 16. “Eagle Ford is a good problem to have.”

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/School-swells-with-newcomers-3380218.php

“Will you explain why you chose this book?” Blake Love asked, like two dozen others at the Main Library’s literary speed-dating event Wednesday, as he leaned in to examine Michael Gruber‘s thriller “The Book of Air and Shadows.”

“It says it’s ‘breathlessly engaging … brilliant,’ ” Kamath, 36, explained, flipping the novel to its backside and pointing out a review. “I’m halfway through and that hasn’t happened yet, so I’m hoping someone finished it and tells me the ending.”

Love, 27, laughed and shook his head. He hadn’t.

“This is a good book,” he said, offering “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving as an alternative. “It deals a lot with faith and hope and belief.”

“It was on my list,” Kamath said, smiling.

Four minutes later, they were back at introductions with other book-clutching speed daters. Twenty-five lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender participants, and 38 straight participants the night before, got a chance to find love before Valentine’s Day during the library’s first literary speed-dating events. The events drew so much interest that the library hopes to replicate them again soon.

Announced at the start of the year, each free event was designed to accommodate 36 people. Enrollment for the straight night closed at the end of January with a waiting list of 50 people, said librarian Donya Drummond.

“This is changing the image of the library, showing that it can be a social place and not just a studious place,” she said.

The buzz at the tables, decorated with heart-shaped Valentine’s Day candies and flowers, seemed to tell that story.

“I’m definitely a person that gets turned on intellectually when someone shares what they’re passionate about,” said Jesse Mills, a 33-year-old homeless San Francisco writer and musician who attended the straight event.

But books didn’t help break the ice for everyone.

Some dates wound up in awkward moments of silence, and participants wandered shyly when the rotation system hiccupped and they were told to find bookworms they hadn’t yet met.

Speed dating can be nerve-racking for people who aren’t outgoing, said Jeremy Bollinger, owner of DateSwitch.com, a speed-dating service in the city for six years. Still, “it’s a good thing to go outside the box and leave your comfort zone. … Every five minutes the bell rings, so that’s going for you,” he said.

Though the library welcomed people in their 20s and 30s – much to the chagrin of some who complained about age discrimination on the library’s Facebook page – participants were asked only for their names and e-mails, so a variety of characters showed up.

Sharing a book about cooking and a sci-fi novel, 41-year-old Iris Tashjian, who said she came to find “if not love, maybe a book club,” walked away with the latter.

Because of the great turnout, the library is looking to include silver foxes and cougars for their own speed-dating event, Drummond said.

At the conclusion, some participants who decided they were lovers of more than books exchanged names and numbers instead of waiting for library staff to give contact information for those who checked each other off on purple match sheets. The name that one man jotted down, however, was that of Octavio Paz, a Nobel Prize-winning Mexican writer.

Kamath found a seat at an empty table at the back of the room. He chuckled, looking around and back down at his match sheet. The speed dates allowed just enough time to scratch the surface of the characters he’d met, and none had finished “The Book of Air and Shadows.” But he admitted he encountered some who were “breathlessly engaging … brilliant.”

“I checked off a lot of people … seven,” he said. “I didn’t fall in love, but I did meet some lovely people here.”

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Singles-check-one-another-out-at-S-F-Main-Library-2530822.php