BART made headlines across the country with its candid Twitter exchange about aging infrastructure, but less publicized is the way the transportation agency reaches out to the Bay Area homeless population.
Just ask Armando Sandoval. It's hard to explain what his job actually is. Officially, he’s BART’s community outreach liaison, but some of his co-workers call him the “homeless whisperer.” That’s because he spends a big chunk of his mornings walking around Downtown San Francisco BART stations, waking homeless people up and asking how he can help them.
There’s been a 45% increase in mental health related calls to BART police since 2011, and many involve homeless people. When officers don’t know what to do, they call Sandoval. KALW’s Holly J. McDede spent a morning with him and the BART police to see how a transportation network confronts homelessness.
