you are topping off the can. we are not supposed to empty the can. there is a can on every corner. sometimes we get calls the majority of my work is done on eyesight if i see it i do it. downtown we fill up 3 or 4 times a day. >> daily it could change and be various different assignments that come up. we can swing by, we see some of the trucks unloading in the area. >> this is our dump site, this is where we dump the debris. we come twice a day to unload all the trucks. i need you to go on up there and he will assist you to unloading the mattress and the futons. >> okay.

okay. >> sometimes you see it popping out. you have to be very careful. pushing in and down. pull it out. >> you have been here once earlier? >> did you have as much stuff? >> more. >> oh , my god. >> did you survive your day in dpw? >> i did i learned quite a bit. the packing truck. shovelling stuff. the steamer i thought i was a candidate for an industrial accident. >> we have 340 employees. most of the people out there do it every day.

>> i'm ready to turn in my vest. >> did a good job today. >> would you pass him on probation. >> yes. see you tomorrow at 6 aye been in san francisco 20 years. i'm homeless. i got a good cup of coffee. i got a number. today i'm 359. >> you try to do the right thing and make a point to do what you have to to be at one place. they have all the services at one building. i can spend 4 hours touching each table ask and getting the information i need to get back on my feet. they are providing the services under one roof. you don't have to go here or there or wait until next week.

>> at the time we opened we have folks waiting outside to come in. >> good morning. >> what we are doing is trying to find out what they want and need and getting them to their services as fast as possible. >> i came to the eye glasses program. making a couple of phone calls to my family at home. >> some housing, i'm here for employment. may be see about -- i've never been to one of these. i have not been homeless before. >> the scareiest are the people who are recently homeless who look like me. look like they could be my friend or family member. a few wrong choices and bad luck got them here. >> i was laid off 2-1/2 weeks ago and came to the project

to -- >> i've been married to the same man, my childhood sweetheart he started doing drugs. we went from a nice out in texas to nothing. the next step in the process is they get linked up with a volunteer. this is the heart and soul of the public connect. we greet clients. shake their hands. ask them to follow us and talk to them as we bring them to the hall and lead them to the first station. you find they are humbling on both sides. humbling for me. it's a great opportunity to give the folks the respect they deserve and don't get enough of. >> these are the people we step over on the way to our jobs. i was thankful to the mayor.

our jobs are about helping people. this is another way for us to give back to our community that treats us very well. i like the way they take you around to get you started. that's nice. they let you go and thoser the different things you need. >> are you with a program, now? >> i was a long time -- >> you want a job search? >> career planning [inaudible]. you are interested in getting into the trades? and that is where they will double check your trading skills you got and put you on a crew and you can do construction work or any kind of construction. >> okay. >> good. are you receiving food stamps? >> no. >> not medical or nothing.

>> no. >> we got to get you hooked up. >> this the department of human searchss this is the benefit's section much the beauty on coming here today is that we brought all of our requirements to this place, this station. the assessment. the orientation, we have the screening propose, the finger imaging this helps people who are unable to tolerate going to different appointments on several days. >> i want to talk to people from housing and shelter. there are several jobs i have been given it's a matter of following up. >> i'm going to get my eye glasses, try to. when i got here they said 60 people. not everybody will get a pair. 8 million people in san francisco who are homeless.

>> i volunteered for the eye screening. they are appreciative, they tell us that. and they have come back to say, thank you very much. we appreciate this. it's made a difference in my life. there was a guy today that couldn't see so near sighted he couldn't seebeyond 2 or 3 inches. everything is a blur. it's a miracle for him. >> they are not doing anymore screening for the day. i will go to health care, next. >> this is the medical section where they come and give us their names and we ask them to have a seat with the rn. there are 6 rn's that will find out what they need. it could be just to see a doctor. they will sit here, write an assessment and someone will

escourt them to where the doctors are. we have 2 if not more licensed dentests that look at people's mouth. they get a card to a drop-in clinic. the only thing that holds us back is we don't have enough dentists to treat the number of people. we would treat more people. >> this is not an area that people deal with. it can be a significant barrier. we see 185 to 200 clients. in the dmv area we see 300 to 350. >> it's overwhelming but helpful. there are a lot of people willing to help. >> at cafe connect we have volunteers that work as waiters.

everyone who come here experiences a surprise that it's such an easy thing to relate to this group of people. when you are out of the street you ignore them. when you are here you treat them like human beings. people are gratified. >> you give back to people. you give back to our community and it makes the world a little less cruel. >> i heard people in line talking about the donation when they walked out. it was nice to see people come and get the things they want and leave. it's rewarding for our employees to help out. >> the feedback i have gotten from the employees today has been positive. they are encouraged that the fact the city is doing something like this for the homeless. >> i got involved, my son adam who's a teacher in san francisco

participated and invited me. >> i got involved with a friend. i came a couple months ago and wanted to make it a priority to come again and invite my family and more friends. >> it's well organized. i'm impressed how organized it is. it feels wonderful to be a part of it. >> affords dignity to the people who affords the services. >> every service you can need or get you started is here under one roof. if you leave here you should have [inaudible]. the bottom line is you make

>> the san francisco arts commission's public arts program made a big splash in the civic center with the world premiere

of three heads, six arms. the artist came from shanghai to help us celebrate the unavailing. we had a chance to speak with him about his work. >> the san francisco arts commission is pleased to be celebrating their relationship between san high and san francisco. the shanghai and san francisco. this is a 30 relationship that stretches back to win dianne feinstein was the mayor of san francisco. we premiered a new work of art here in san francisco called the

three heads, six arms. welcome to san francisco. thank you for bringing your extraordinary sculpture. can you tell me about what inspired you to create this sculpture? >> this started with some trips that i took years ago. i went to to bed and i saw a lot of statues and i started to really feel the spiritual life of people in tibet. it really inspires me and i went back to shanghai and i started the creation of this. >> we see that one of the heads

of the bullet it is your face. can you talk about the significance of that? -- we see that one of the heads of the buddha is your face. >> i started doing public art almost 10 years ago. what i want to express this as an extension of my our practice. this is an accumulation of my own experience as a performance artist. >> we see that the scale is very important. we have seen other works where a limb of this culture is on the floor but everything is very big and large scale. what are you trying to

accomplish with expanding the scale of these images to such a great size. >> i wanted to make large scale art and see how this plays a role in contemporary society. i think that is the mission of contemporary art, to serve as a social critique. >> when the mayor knew some -- when mayor newsom join you in dedicating this, they wanted to find a work that was big and bold. he was so pleased with your

participation that he made you an honoraria citizens of san francisco for the next 18 months. the public reaction has been very positive. what is your reaction of how people receive your sculpture? >> i think that san francisco has a long history. this gigantic sculpture is in front of the civic center. i know that that is not the kind of a go with whole environment. there is an exchange with the american culture and the asian culture which has created this very strong power.

this power was created by east meets west may be is exactly what our mayor or the public wants. they will start to be curious and wonder how this is here and how we look at the asian culture. >> you have lived internationally, you have lived in cities like new york and beijing, now shanghai. you made a very conscious decision to lend this culture to san francisco as opposed to having it premier as an exhibition at another museum. >> i am very satisfied with the turnout and i lived in new york for 8 years and all of my children were born in new york.

i already have the american spirit. i am proud to be here and i really appreciate the spirit of committing to things and being honored and being collaborative. when i flashed back to my career, i think about what an artist can do is a teeny tiny thing. i want to contribute to the hall human society. what art can do is just this tiny bit. >> your invitation has already proven to be a great success and we really look forward to spending time with your sculpture. thank you for being part of "culture wire." >> thank you for being part of this project. >> thank you for watching.

join us for future episodes. you can when a resident of san francisco is looking for health care, you look in your neighborhood first. what is closest to you? if you come to a neighborhood health center or a clinic, you then have access it a system of care in the community health network. we are a system of care that was probably based on the family practice model, but it was really clear that there are special populations with special needs. the cole street clinic is a youth clinic in the heart of the haight ashbury and they target youth. tom woodell takes care of many of the central city residents

and they have great expertise in providing services for many of the homeless. potrero hill and southeast health centers are health centers in those particular communities that are family health centers, so they provide health care to patients across the age span. . >> many of our clients are working poor. they pay their taxes. they may run into a rough patch now and then and what we're able to provide is a bridge towards getting them back on their feet. the center averages about 14,000 visits a year in the health clinic alone. one of the areas that we specialize in is family medicine, but the additional focus of that is is to provide care to women and children. women find out they're pregnant, we talk to them about the importance of getting good prenatal care which takes many visits. we initially will see them for their full physical to

determine their base line health, and then enroll them in prenatal care which occurs over the next 9 months. group prenatal care is designed to give women the opportunity to bond during their pregnancy with other women that have similar due dates. our doctors here are family doctors. they are able to help these women deliver their babies at the hospital, at general hospital. we also have the wic program, which is a program that provides food vouchers for our families after they have their children, up to age 5 they are able to receive food vouchers to get milk and cereal for their children. >> it's for the city, not only our clinic, but the city. we have all our children in san francisco should have insurance now because if they are low income enough, they get medical. if they actually have a little more assets, a little more income, they can get happy family.

we do have family who come outside of our neighborhood to come on our clinic. one thing i learn from our clients, no matter how old they are, no matter how little english they know, they know how to get to chinatown, meaning they know how to get to our clinic. 85 percent of our staff is bilingual because we are serving many monolingual chinese patients. they can be child care providers so our clients can go out and work. >> we found more and more women of child bearing age come down with cancer and they have kids and the kids were having a horrible time and parents were having a horrible time. how do parents tell their kids they may not be here?

what we do is provide a place and the material and support and then they figure out their own truth, what it means to them. i see the behavior change in front of my eyes. maybe they have never been able to go out of boundaries, their lives have been so rigid to sort of expressing that makes tremendous changes. because we did what we did, it is now sort of a nationwide model. >> i think you would be surprised if you come to these clinics. many of them i think would be your neighbors if you knew that. often times we just don't discuss that. we treat husband and wife and they bring in their kids or we treat the grandparents and then the next generation. there are people who come in who need treatment for their heart disease or for their diabetes or their high blood pressure or their cholesterol or their hepatitis b. we actually provide group medical visits and group

education classes and meeting people who have similar chronic illnesses as you do really helps you understand that you are not alone in dealing with this. and it validates the experiences that you have and so you learn from each other. >> i think it's very important to try to be in tune with the needs of the community and a lot of our patients have -- a lot of our patients are actually immigrants who have a lot of competing priorities, family issues, child care issues, maybe not being able to find work or finding work and not being insured and health care sometimes isn't the top priority for them. we need to understand that so that we can help them take care of themselves physically and emotionally to deal with all these other things. they also have to be working through with people living longer and living with more chronic conditions i think we're going to see more

patients coming through. >> starting next year, every day 10,000 people will hit the age of 60 until 2020. . >> the needs of the patients that we see at kerr senior center often have to do with the consequences of long standing substance abuse and mental illness, linked to their chronic diseases. heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, stroke, those kinds of chronic illnesses. when you get them in your 30's and 40's and you have them into your aging process, you are not going to have a comfortable old age. you are also seeing in terms of epidemics, an increase in alzheimer's and it is going to increase as the population increases. there are quite a few seniors

who have mental health problems but they are also, the majority of seniors, who are hard-working, who had minimum wage jobs their whole lives, who paid social security. think about living on $889 a month in the city of san francisco needing to buy medication, one meal a day, hopefully, and health care. if we could provide health care early on we might prevent (inaudible) and people would be less likely to end up in the emergency room with a drastic outcome. we could actually provide prevention and health care to people who had no other way of getting health care, those without insurance, it might be more cost effecti >> welcome to coulterwire.

the san francisco arts commission and department of public works has joined forces by battling graffiti by launching a new program called street smarts. the program connects established artist with private property owners to create a vibrant murals which is a proven an effective strategy for combating graffiti on private property. artists, along with his crew, recently transformed a building turn to vandalism into a masterpiece. let us take a look. >> part of me has so much compassion for other graffiti artists. i understand why they are doing what they do. for me, it was something that

was so hard to get out of. the lifestyle in general. j and tagging is addicting. i used to be on these routes. i have compassion for these guys. a lot of these guys are super talented. i am just trying to find the median to still be involved but still do my thing as an artist and work with the city, like we are doing. we are doing this wall in a collaboration with the san francisco arts commission. basically what they are doing is trying to get rid of some of the tags and by putting up murals. they are cooking up graffiti artists with business owners. today, we are trying to get a lot of this wall buffed out and

covered it. then we will spray on some sketches of what we are going to do. the rain is coming tomorrow. it should be here for a few days. we want others to know that there are artists working on this wall. the owner of this building, she has had to pay a lot of money to keep on paying over these attacks. >> we have paid as much as $400. the fed typically have been talk about four times a year. typically, it happened right after we have been notified that we need to remove it. the painter will go up there and paid over the graffiti and make a perfect canvas for the tigers to come back. this program appeals to me because we were looking for a way to stop the taggers and the ugly graffiti. this program