Martin de Porres House of Hospitality

Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, referred to simply as Martin’s by many, serves free lunch Monday through Saturday between noon and 2 p.m., and offers shower facilities. The nonprofit recently eliminated breakfast, as it was attracting fentanyl users who loitered for hours waiting for Martin’s to open, which was upsetting neighbors. 

Martin’s is inspired by the Catholic Worker movement, though guests and volunteers have diverse spiritual practices, and vary in age, sexual orientation, and economic, social, cultural, political, and educational backgrounds. It serves between 900 and 1,500 people a week, with demand intensifying towards the end of each month.

The 501(c)(3) organization has been run by volunteers since it opened in 1971. It doesn’t receive any church or government money, with a volunteer board of directors and no paid staff. All funding comes from private donations and foundations.

Martin’s strives to serve in the spirit of compassion, understanding and love. All are welcomed and treated with respect and hospitality. As stated on its website, “Eating is a right, not a privilege and feeding the hungry is a matter of justice, not of charity.”

The Dalai Lama visited Martin’s in 2009 and served 50 guests. Mother Teresa stopped by in the late 1980’s and blessed the newly built showers. Rock concert promoter Bill Graham donated the first meal served at Martins when it relocated to Potrero Avenue, after being evicted from a previous location. 

“When we began, we had a small place on 23rd and Bryant. It could only serve forty-nine people… and we were renting,” said Abby Lehrman, who has served on Martin’s board of directors since 1984, with a two-year absence before returning in 2025. “The neighborhood was changing and we became homeless in 1985. We decided to purchase a building.”

Barbara Collier, who was Martin’s inspirational leader for three decades before her death in 2009, was able to raise the money to purchase the structure Martin’s currently occupies on Potrero Avenue, between 15th and 16th streets. The fundraising effort was buoyed by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Cain, who included mention of it in one of his articles. The publicity prompted the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund to donate to the nonprofit, which it has continued ever since. 

“When Barb died, things kind of fell to her partner Charlie, and now he’s in Laguna Honda with Alzheimer’s,” said Lehrman. “So, what happened to us is we did not plan any succession… All our major people were in their 70’s and 80’s… With no succession plan, Martin’s has had problems getting committed people to volunteer.”

According to Lehrman, Martin’s water and garbage bills have significantly increased. To reduce water costs, the hours that showers are offered may be reduced for the first time in Martin’s history. The organization may also need to start writing grants to secure funding. 

One of the largest challenges Martin’s faces stems from the fentanyl epidemic. 

“It got really crazy for a while,” said Lehrman. “We were serving breakfast from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.… We have a big garden where you could sit on a bench and kind of be by yourself and we had another area that was pretty private and people started using at Martin’s… Then drug dealers would come and then the neighbors were calling the cops… This never happened in all of my 40 whatever years that I’ve been there… So, what we had to do is we stopped breakfast and we started to have a policy where there was always two people in the yard to say, hey you can’t use in here… Then they’d spill out onto the street… We even lost a lot of volunteers because they felt uncomfortable.” 

Martin’s partners with HealthRIGHT 360, which provides free healthcare in front of the facility on Mondays from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Thursdays from noon to 2 p.m. Offerings include primary and urgent medical care, wound care, vaccinations, lab work, and case management. The influx of people lining up for these services has contributed to an increase in activity on nearby streets and the Potrero Center.

Andres (Andy) Alcantar, who serves as board president, and his wife worked at Martins on the third Saturday of every month for 30 years, running a crew out of St. Paul’s Catholic Church. He recently met with Potrero Hill residents to discuss street disruptions caused by the nonprofit.

“They’re not happy with us, our neighbors, however we just had a meeting with the neighbors,” said Lehrman. “These two guys just bought the building on the other side of us… and they’re very amenable to working with us. And we always want to do that. We don’t want to see the streets all dirty and filthy…. We are not oppositional to them… We have a lot of issues right now facing us that we never had before.”

Keith Goldstein, a Hill resident for more than 50 years who lives on the corner of Kansas and 20th streets, was so involved with Martin’s that he was trusted with keys to the property. He delivered food to the nonprofit every Saturday for many years, bringing as much as 2,000 pounds of fare in the summer. 

“For the last 34 years, I go every Saturday, with a very large panel truck to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market,” said Goldstein. “The farmers donate all their left over food to me… My main recipient until about eighteen months ago was Martin de Porres… I pick up pastries five days a week. They will donate to me 150 pastries on a typical day and very often I would deliver those to Martin’s as well. I would often walk along 16th Street and a couple of times it looked like night of the living dead out there. These people were hunched over, just walking around in a daze at this wonderful place that provided hot meals and hot showers for people for many years… I never had a bad experience with any of the recipients. I’d give them pastries out of my box and chat with some of the people, but that was all pre-fentanyl days.”

Martin’s began systematically enforcing a no drug use policy a year ago, which according to Lehrman has helped tremendously. 

“There’s no drug use within Martin’s,” said Lehrman. “It’s monitored very closely. They get kicked out if they try and use in here. We still get people who are using, but they can’t use in here.”