Homeless to Housed: Stone's Story

After experiencing homelessness, being given the keys to one’s own space opens up all sorts of possibilities. A door that can lock provides safety; a roof and walls offer protection from the elements. But as people settle into their new homes, the spaces can also slowly become a reflection of who they are and what is important to them. Last month, we were invited into Larry Dimery’s space, which was filled with framed photos of his family. 

In this latest installment of our Homeless to Housed series, we meet Stone Selseth, a resident of a single-room occupancy hotel in the Tenderloin. With an eye for design and a penchant for secondhand shopping, he’s transformed his tiny studio (which only has a small sink and closet) into a multifunctional space: By day it’s an office, and at night it converts to his bedroom. On the afternoon we paid Stone and his dog Aus a visit, clear skies showed off an incredible view of San Francisco from his window.. 

There, Stone shared the story of how he got into permanent supportive housing and how it’s been his gateway to community organizing. 

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I've been in San Francisco since 2015. I was born in California, but I was raised in Minnesota, and I realized that there was more to life than just where I was. I traveled all over the country, and then I ended up falling in love with the city, the Bay Area: the opportunities out here, the culture. I've never looked back.

I started out here in a van, and from there I went to a hostel. I bounced around a little and made friends with the person who I was staying with on Airbnb, and once he moved to New York, I took over his rent-controlled lease at 1000 Howard St. I was working as a model, but it was always like: when's the next job coming? There was this stress in paying rent, missing rent, paying rent. When the pandemic happened, I got so many months behind.

Then, in February 2022, the fire happened. I ran out in my bathrobe, barefoot, and I got my dog out. There was no damage to my unit, but when the firefighters came through, they kicked every door in, and then they didn't secure the building that well. They didn't fix the elevator, and there was no way I was moving any of my stuff out. Some people broke in and stole pretty much everything. It’s still boarded up to this day. 

After that, I was homeless for a little while. I was wrongfully arrested. All the charges were dropped, but it was a nightmare to navigate. After the arrest, the pretrial diversion project put me up in a hotel for three days; but after that, they were like, you’ve got to go to a shelter, but you're on the list for housing. I got really lucky and got a permanent supportive housing apartment. 

I can imagine worse apartments, but the person who was in there before me passed away, and the apartment wasn’t very clean. It was on the first floor in the back of the building, and out my window was a concrete wall. The person above me would let his dogs out on the fire escape, and they'd poop and pee all over my window. I was there for about a year.

Finally, I got an internal safety move, and they moved me here. Having a space like this really took a burden off me, but I didn't start really decorating it until maybe four or five months ago. I started by buying these little rolling carts from IKEA and some plants. I’ve been shopping on Facebook Marketplace for a couple months since then. Now it just feels cool, like if I'm ever on a Zoom call, or inviting people over, it feels more like a reflection of me. It’s like an office now instead of a small bedroom. I fold the sofa down every day for sleeping, and then it goes up again. I like to be a homebody as much as I can be.  

Even though I've lived in the city for 10-plus years, I've always kind of avoided the Tenderloin, up until two years ago. Now, I’m knee-deep in the Tenderloin, and I love it here. There's opportunity to do things, to help others, and there's so much amazing history here. It’s probably the only part of the city that actually feels like a big city. You can go outside and people are doing things all hours of the day. It's like a mini New York. 

From my window, you can just barely see the Senator Hotel. That's where Clark Gable would stay. Then, up the street is the Hyde Street Studio, and in the basement of the Cadillac Hotel, which is now the Tenderloin Museum, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman used to box down there. The history here is unbelievable.

One day, I saw a flyer on the elevators asking for a new community organizer. I was like, “OK, I need to do something for myself now.” It was an opportunity to become a community organizer for this building through the Central City SRO Collaborative. We do a monthly leadership meeting, a tenant organizers meeting, and then if you're part of the safety committee, we do the safety committee meeting. I started working there for a stipend, and we’re really politically active. We’re going to City Hall fighting for our budget. I was making public comments, volunteering at the food drive, and doing all these things. Through them, I got connected to be on the Supportive Housing Provider Resident Advisory Board.

I also work with Brightline, an air quality nonprofit, as a community leader. We designed a 20-question survey and canvassed our neighbors. We also gave away air filters to people. I gave two of them away in this building to residents who have health issues or who we thought could really benefit from them. That felt awesome. Then I work with an SFPD policy work group to lower recidivism and try to provide more resources. 

I always wanted to be politically active, but I didn’t know how. I don't know how that would have happened without being in the Tenderloin and connecting directly with the community here. I can't see it any other way now; it's crazy to me that there aren't other community organizing groups for all the other housing providers. 

As nice as this is, my neighbor, two floors down, woke me up at 4am with a subwoofer. For some reason, the past week, at 3am every other day, the fire alarm has been going off. My mom was a firefighter growing up. So anytime a fire alarm goes off, I walk the building to figure out if it's real or not.

Looking ahead, I would like to move on, but at the same time, I’m kind of easing myself back in. None of the positions I have now are solid 9 to 5s. Having a space like this really took that burden off; everything before this was a struggle. Someday I would like to move into a new unit again that I lease myself. It’s something to build up to.