“When you’re ready, I’ll be here,” Jamika explained to a person who was just waking up on the sidewalk at the corner of Jones and Ellis streets. “If you don’t see me, just look out for the purple vest or a GLIDE Whole Person Care van. When you see us, you’ll know help is coming.”
“Help is coming” are words you’ll hear many times over if you spend time with Jamika or any one of the sixteen Cecil Williams Community Ambassadors at GLIDE . Each day, they walk an average of 5 miles across approximately 40 city blocks around the Tenderloin and Lower Nob Hill, engaging unhoused neighbors, small businesses, and SRO residents to connect them with life-saving services. On Thursdays and Sundays, UCSF roving nurses join our ambassadors to offer street medicine – including vaccinations, cancer screenings, and wound care – to people without access to health care.
GLIDE launched this program last July with three goals in mind:
- Expand GLIDE’s model of integrated services beyond our building on 330 Ellis Street.
- Embrace a vision of community safety that is centered on Unconditional Love and not punishment.
- Create a radically inclusive community of people who share GLIDE’s values of human dignity, safe streets, thriving businesses, and a place at the table for everyone.
The program has shown tremendous results in its first year on the streets.
– We’ve grown our team by 25%, doubled the number service connections from 2,000 per month in July 2024 to nearly 6,000 in May 2025.
– Since the program’s inception, Ambassadors have administered Narcan to reverse overdoses 192 times; approximately twenty overdose reversals per month.
– On one neighborhood block alone, our tent count went from 19 to zero as we worked with the SF HOT Team, 311, Code Enforcement, Public Works, and the Department of Emergency Management to remove tents and place unhoused neighbors into shelters, sober living, and permanent housing.
We identify areas of acute need and work together with the community to deliver safe, compassionate, and effective results. When the City opened a new stabilization center at 822 Geary Street, our team increased medical, behavioral, and transport services along Geary, as well as all of the streets and alleyways that flow onto Geary between Leavenworth and Van Ness. We offer case management and wrap-around services for whole person care, including transportation to substance use disorder treatment centers, sober living environments, shelters and temporary housing, support groups, fellowship, access to food programs, and a wide array of additional wrap-around services.
For Jamika, being an Ambassador means delivering outcomes that create a safe environment for everyone. She recently found an apartment for an unhoused woman named Jessica and her husband. Between smiles and some tears, Jamika described the joy of seeing them finally find a place they could call home. It took several conversations with Jessica over a number of weeks to finalize the process, but Jamika never gave up. She grew up in San Francisco and thinks about her own friends and family in every person she encounters on the street. “When people see the Ambassadors, they feel comfortable. They’re happy to see us coming and they know we’re here to help.”
Jamika is carrying on a legacy left by Cecil Wiliams to all of us who support the Tenderloin: Inviting people from all walks of life to embrace the transformative power of unconditional love.
Please join us. Click here for information on how you can sign up to join the Cecil Williams Ambassadors for a volunteer shift.
