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Walking along a bustling section of Telegraph Avenue, Mayor Tom Bates, clad in beat-up sneakers and a pair of baggy, frayed blue jeans, intently watched the ground from beneath the brim of a cap pulled low over his forehead. 

Suddenly he stooped to pick up an apple that was wedged between the edge of the sidewalk and a Cyclone fence near Haste Street. 

“That’s what we call a ‘ground score’, ” said a homeless man walking alongside the mayor. The man high-fived the mayor, who then polished the small treasure on his shirt before slipping it into his pants’ pocket.  

“I’m going to save this for tonight,” the mayor said and returned his attention to the sidewalk. 

The scene might have been typical in the day of a homeless person. In this case, however, trailing 20 feet behind the mayor was a gaggle of reporters, photographers and cameramen making note of his every move.  

Bates, 65, was touring Telegraph Avenue as part of a 24-hour stint as a homeless person. During his time on the street, Bates slept in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, toured 15 homeless service centers and spoke to dozens of homeless people on city streets and in city parks. 

The mayor and his entourage finally set up camp beneath the trees behind the Civic Center around 9:30 Tuesday night. There, Bates used a public Porta-Potty that he described as a horrible experience, and was wakened around 2 a.m. by a Berkeley police officer who hadn’t been notified of the city-authorized one-night encampment. Usually the park closes at 10 p.m.  

Bates was joined in the park by about 30 people including his chief of staff, Cisco DeVries, and boona cheema, director of the nonprofit homeless agency Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency. BOSS Community Organizer Michael Diehl, who spent many years homeless and planned much of the mayor’s 24-hour itinerary, also spent the night in the park. 

Bates first promised to spend 24 hours on the street in the heat of a campaign debate last year, but in the five months since he won the mayor’s office, the trip turned into a mission of discovery.  

“I saw a lot of heart-breaking things,” Bates said. “I saw a mother with a 3-year-old baby and no place to go.” 

The mayor said that he tried to find out as much information as he could from the people living on the streets. 

“I had a lot of interchange with homeless people in the last 24 hours,” he said. “I asked them where they were from. I asked them what they did for a living, why they were homeless.” 

DeVries said it was a good time for the mayor to learn about the city’s homeless programs because cuts in state funding appear to be inevitable. He said, however, that preliminary city budgets don’t appear to include large cuts to homeless programs.  

Berkeley’s homeless population is difficult to track and currently no official head count exists. The city devotes $3 million to homeless programs, and the federal and state governments provide another $7.3 million for an annual total of $10.3 million.  

That money provides services for an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 people. 

Services in Berkeley include four shelters with 200 permanent beds for individuals and families, and an additional 75 temporary beds during the winter. There are four daytime drop-in centers and two multi-service centers.  

Of Berkeley’s estimated homeless population, 70 percent are adult, 75 percent are male, 20 percent are women with children and 61 percent are African-American, according to a fact sheet released by the mayor’s office. 

Bates kicked off his 24-hour stint with a dinner of mixed rice, broccoli and juice at the Trinity Baptist Church on Bancroft. He visited the Anne Carter Memorial Free Clothing Store at the Ecumenical Chaplaincy to the Homeless.  

He then toured the Berkeley Free Clinic before walking, with about 25 people in tow, to People’s Park. Bates sat on a plywood stage and bantered with a small group of homeless people for about 30 minutes before moving on to the UC student-run Suitcase Clinic on Dana Street.  

The clinic provides a variety of services including foot washing, chiropractic care and legal services.  

“I’m in total awe of this program,” Bates said. “The students do everything there from giving haircuts, to giving legal counsel to washing feet, which to me is one of the most humbling things possible.” 

Many service providers are concerned that coming budget cuts will decimate their programs and reduce their ability to care for the homeless.  

Bates said his one-night experience was valuable for better understanding the city’s homeless services and the people who use them.  

“Most of what I learned, I learned from talking to homeless people,” a bleary-eyed Bates said at a press conference at his final stop, the Center for Independent Living, on Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve taken in so much information it will take some time to absorb it and think it through.” 

He did suggest an immediate action that would not cost any money. He said he learned that it was critical to establish better coordination between existing homeless services. He said, for example, the attendants at the 80-bed Harrison House in West Berkeley should be better trained to deal with disabled clients, who are sometimes turned away because attendants lack basic knowledge about providing service to the disabled.  

Bates said his night gave him the impression that about half of the homeless are so by choice, and that the other half want to get off the street but are prevented by lack of support or substance abuse problems.  

“We have to find a way to help the 50 percent who want to get off the street, to get off the street,” he said. “I want to see a detox facility established somewhere in Alameda County to help these people.” 

During his tour Bates was often challenged by the homeless, who questioned the sincerity of his homeless stint. Some thought his night was an opportunity to get positive publicity for himself or perhaps a prelude to a crackdown by police or deep cuts to the homeless budget. 

A man calling himself “Breeze” said he’d been homeless for 30 years and had seen politicians pull similar stunts in the past.  

“Are you spending the night in a sleeping bag from the Free Box?” Breeze said, referring to a donation box where the homeless can find clothing and other items. “If you’re going to come out here with us, come out here with us.” 

Bates admitted that his night only allowed him brief insight to the condition of homelessness. “This was just a glimpse, a sip, a taste, but there was also a lot of reality,” he said. 

At the press conference, Bates denied his homeless night was a stunt and said there were no plans to cut services. Rather, he described himself as invigorated to work to maintain homeless services in the face of large budget deficits. 

“This was not about Tom Bates,” he said. “It’s about the people who are homeless, the casualties that walk our streets.”