For roughly seven years, a San Francisco homeless man has been cleaning one of the most beleaguered blocks in the city’s troubled Tenderloin neighborhood—Ellis Street, between Jones and Taylor streets.

Ralph Wade, otherwise known as Uncle Ralph or Rah Rah, has lived in a tent on the destitute street for almost a decade, he told The Standard. But unlike many other people living in tents around the neighborhood, nearby workers and residents said they don’t want Ralph to move. One nonprofit went as far as to install a sign in their window asking the city not to move him on.

That’s because nearly every day since 2016, when he landed on the block from Las Vegas, Ralph has taken to sweeping, hosing and tidying up the sidewalk as much as he can.

He wakes up as early as 2 a.m., listening to classic rock music, methodically ridding the streets of trash—one broom sweep at a time. Some mornings, he uses a “special wrench” to connect a hose to a fire hydrant and power wash the sidewalks. 

To some, cleaning the perpetually filthy block may seem futile. But for Ralph, it gives him purpose.

“I clean it up one hour, and they’re back messing it up again the next,” Ralph said. “It’s more spiritual than anything.” 

Sally Chiu, a property manager at an Ellis Street building on his block, said Ralph is usually quicker to respond than the city when she complains about ever-mounting sidewalk debris, which sometimes traps elderly tenants inside the property she runs.

“He’s a hero,” Chiu said. “Without him, everyone says they’re going to quit.”

Rachel Gordon, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Works, said the department deploys street cleaners to the Tenderloin every day. However, she said the city is unable to immediately clean every mess that’s made—particularly on streets such as Ellis.

Gordon said property owners are responsible for the cleanliness of their sidewalks, and the department also “very much appreciates” people like Ralph who clean the streets.

“Unfortunately, there are some blocks in the Tenderloin that get dirtied soon after they’re cleaned,” Gordon said in an emailed statement. “It takes a team to keep the city clean.”

That much was clear when the city threw away Ralph’s cleaning supplies during an encampment clearing operation a few months ago, leaving the neighborhood messier than usual, according to Steve Binnquist, neighborhood coordinator of the nonprofit Youth With a Mission at 357 Ellis St.

“For them to just toss Ralph’s cleaning supplies, it was hard,” Binnquist said. “It impacted the neighborhood.”

That event is part of what prompted Binnquist to hang up a sign in the nonprofit’s window above Ralph’s tent, which reads, “We give permission for Ralph to keep his tent in this location,” complete with a signature and a phone number scribbled at the bottom. 

A similar sign hangs above a tent next to Ralph’s. That tent is the home of 67-year-old Eli Kane, who said he volunteers as a security guard of sorts for the nonprofit. 

Ralph said he’s romanticized living on Ellis Street since his mid-20s when he visited his uncle in the neighborhood. 

The way Ralph tells it, being homeless is a choice he’s made. He worked for many years as a baker but said he got too old to stand all day. He contends he could still afford an apartment if he wanted to, but he simply hasn’t had the time to find one.

“I haven’t had the time to do it,” he said. “The street comes first.”

Ralph said he first pitched a tent on Ellis Street when he was 61 years old because everybody else was doing it. 

“I told myself when I retired, I was going to come to Ellis Street and smoke weed with the fellas,” he said. “Everybody else had a tent, and I was like, ‘I’m going to get a tent too.’” 

Eventually, Ralph said he found a broom and thus found purpose. His attachment to the block grew as he became friends with people living in the senior center at 301 Ellis St.

Even though his family worries about him, Ralph said his choice to live on Ellis Street was spiritually motivated. He has attempted to enter housing. He even stayed in a shelter once but couldn’t find an apartment close enough to his beloved block. 

“My mom would call me on the phone and say, ‘Are you still in that tent?’” Ralph said. 

But those who care about Ralph say his commitment to living on the street is puzzling. 

Ralph said he spends over $600 of his monthly $1,080 Social Security stipend on street cleaning.

“He can put the happy face on,” said Jeffrey Wade, Ralph’s brother. “But I know Ralph. He doesn’t want to be out there in those streets. … He ain’t happy out there, and if he is, he’s lost his mind.”

Jeffrey said Ralph came from a happy home in Kingston, New York, and he was an excellent baker.

He said he wasn’t sure what compelled his brother to live on the street in San Francisco, suggesting he may be using drugs or running from his past criminal record. Ralph was arrested in 1986 for allegedly assaulting someone “with intent to commit a specified sex offense,” according to an online registry.

Ralph pushed back on those accusations, however, contending he doesn’t have an issue with drugs and that he was framed for the assault because he matched the description of a “Black man with a blue hoodie.”

Chiu also said she has never known Ralph to use drugs. 

He said the criminal accusations didn’t factor into his decision to move to San Francisco and he held a job for many years after he left prison. 

“That was so long ago I almost forgot about it,” Ralph said. “The only time I’ve ever been at a disadvantage in my life is because of the color of my skin.”

Jeffrey said he visited the city in 2021, hoping to convince Ralph to move off the streets. But he couldn’t even convince Ralph to leave Ellis for lunch. 

“It’s like he’s given up on himself,” Jeffrey said. “It broke my heart to see him like that.” 

In the last year, Ralph admitted he’s become less comfortable living on the street. He described performing awkward contortions every morning just to get out of bed without hurting his back. 

But he said he would only move into an apartment close to Ellis Street, and he doesn’t trust the city to help him find a place.

“If a city worker walked up to me and said they had a spot for me, I’d think, ‘Something’s not right,’” Ralph said. “It will work out. I’ve just got to have patience.”

Ralph said he’s reluctant to leave Ellis Street, even briefly, because he fears encampments and debris could trap residents at the nearby nursing home.

“God forbid if something happened to them and I was across town,” he said.

This type of hesitancy to work with the city is common among people living on the street, Binnquist said, adding to the reasons he hung the signs to protect Ralph and Eli’s tents. 

“My whole goal is to get Ralph indoors and get Eli indoors,” Binnquist said. “If we’re constantly moving them on or we’re constantly pushing them off from place to place, they can’t make those decisions.”

Binnquist said he believes the city’s enforcement operations have torn away the trust needed to move many people indoors.

“There’s something that happens when someone’s chronically homeless,” Binnquist said. “You just stop believing.”

But to this point, his signs have had little impact on the city’s operations.

On Friday morning, city workers forced Ralph to move from his spot so they could clean the sidewalk. Little did they know, he had spent the past four and a half hours cleaning it.

Ralph temporarily stored his tent inside Youth With a Mission’s office and returned once the city workers left.

“There’s no use in arguing with them,” he said. “I’d bet $1,000 when they leave, it’s not going to look any different.”

The signs above Ralph and Eli’s tents are an unusual sight in a city that’s seen increasing vitriol toward homeless people. 

In January, a fine art gallery owner was caught on film turning a hose on an unhoused person. In May, police records revealed two or more people had attacked homeless people with bear-spray in the Marina neighborhood. In recent months, residents have installed steel garden planters on sidewalks to deter homeless encampments—the planters have been dubbed “hostile architecture” by homeless advocates. 

Some complain that the presence of homeless encampments often brings drug-use activity, violence and unwanted noises late into the night.

Those tensions reached a fever pitch during dueling protests in August as the city attorney battled a federal court ruling restricting the city from clearing encampments in certain cases. The city argued it should be allowed to enforce anti-camping laws if a homeless person declines an offer of shelter. Ultimately, the court agreed and the city’s enforcement continued.

“I understand the city’s position; I really do,” Kane said, expressing his own frustrations with homeless people who trash the street. “But me and Ralph, they should give us a break.”

Binnquist, who lived in the Tenderloin for 17 years and still works in the neighborhood, said he understands people’s frustrations with some members of the unhoused community. He described homeless people brazenly using drugs as he entered his nonprofit’s office with his young children and he complained of others throwing trash and food on the street with little regard for the area.

However, he said he doesn’t believe the solution to these issues is to sweep people down the street. Instead, he contends, those knee-jerk reactions are often counterproductive.

“Encampments that are a danger to the neighborhood, let’s have conservations with them. Let’s see them move on,” Binnquist said. “But not all encampments are created equal.”