Herbert Gains knows the wind-battered corner of Divisadero and Grove Street better than perhaps anyone. He spends most daylight hours resting against the fence in front of Lilly’s Barbeque on Grove Street, often painting or sketching on a piece of cardboard.

Gains, 71, is one of many ever present but rarely counted homeless citizens of San Francisco, living on the streets.

Beulah Whatley remembers him differently, before the drinking, before the divorce. She is from Pittsburgh, where she attended the Baptist church ran by Gains’ father. “I’ve known Herbie all his life, and he’s known me all my life”, she says.

Whatley and Gains moved to the Bay Area, with their respective spouses, unbeknownst to each other until meeting randomly downtown. After that, they saw each other regularly.

“My husband and Herbie were great friends so they would see each other all the time”, Whatley recalled. She now lives roughly five short blocks from the corner of Grove and Divisadero.

Whatley helps clean the Laundromat under her house after work, and occasionally Gains comes in to escape the cold. Whatley credits Gains for his independence and self-reliance in the face of hardship, and gives him found clothes and blankets whenever she can.

“When he’s not drinking he’ll come in…asks me can he help me clean up, and of course I let him and I pay him,” she said.

Gains almost never panhandles despite desperate needs.

“I don’t want to be no burden on nobody, I don’t want nobody to bring me no burdens…” he says. “I’m just trying to tough it out, stick it out, and see what happens, you know…”

“I’m always on him about trying to do better”, admits Whatley, adding that alcohol is mostly to blame for his divorce and eventual homelessness. She credits Gains for his independence and self-reliance in the face of the hardships of homelessness. “I say you got to be a strong person to do that, and not only that God is with you, because you couldn’t do it on your own,” she says.