Read Mission Local often?

Help grow our newsroom , joining the hundreds of San Franciscans who support us by giving below. Donate today!

On a recent Thursday around noon, a man in a private security uniform walking down Mission Street slowed down and peeked inside the door 1928 Mission St.

“Is this a restaurant?” the man asked.

“It’s a soup kitchen,” said Sister Mary Rene. She stood by the door collecting trays as people exited the soup kitchen she, and another nun from the Fraternite Notre Dame of Nazareth, run three times a week on Mission Street between 15th and 16th streets.

“Is it free?”

“Yes. You can come in.”

Reginald Starks smiled. He held an overstuffed plastic bag in one hand and his five-year old son’s hand in the other.

The two sleep at what he described as a “kind o

See Full Page