\u201cIt may look like you\u2019re just getting a haircut,\u201d said Jason Finau, senior director of health and clinical services at Glide. \u201cBut everyone here is trained to pick up on both the verbal and nonverbal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shop grew out of a public health crisis hiding in plain sight. Data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health show that Black men over age 50 represented 12% of all overdose deaths from 2020 to 2024, even though that segment accounts for less than 1% of the population. That means they die from drug overdoses at five times the citywide average. <\/p>\n
Additional data from 2025 (opens in new tab)<\/a>, although not broken out with similar specificity, show that the cohort still accounts for a disproportionate share of drug deaths. Glide leaders and city health officials began asking what it would take to reach them.<\/p>\n Their answer drew on a model tested in several (opens in new tab)<\/a> cities (opens in new tab)<\/a> and towns (opens in new tab)<\/a>, where barbershops had partnered with universities and medical schools to deliver health outreach in spaces where Black men already felt at ease. <\/p>\n But Glide wanted to go further \u2014 not sending providers into barbershops but building one inside a trusted community institution, staffed by licensed barbers trained as health advocates and backed by on-site behavioral health resources.<\/p>\n The Shop\u2019s ribbon was cut March 5, with San Francisco-born actor Danny Glover in the inaugural chair. Since then, it has operated Tuesday through Saturday, with Mondays reserved for men\u2019s groups and clinical programming.<\/p>\n Opened in early March, The Shop offers professional barber services, as well as health education and connection to Glide\u2019s other resources.<\/p>\n Bridget Gillum found the job the way a lot of people find things that turn out to matter: She was looking for something else.<\/p>\n She had been browsing Glide\u2019s website when she noticed a listing for a barber position described as a free grooming service for a marginalized population, and she felt the pull immediately.<\/p>\n In the chair, she said, a quarter-century of technique is only part of what she brings. The more essential skill, she said, is listening.<\/p>\n She described the satisfaction of knowing that when a client\u2019s story surfaces something heavier than a style preference, support is within reach \u2014 not down the street, not a referral to call later, but through a door a few feet away.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve worked in other depressed communities before, and it was somewhat heartbreaking to be able to do everything I could in the scope of my professional capacity but then have to turn away that person, knowing that they had serious health or unhoused issues,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely rewarding and satisfying to know that the resources are here.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Diles, the shop\u2019s other barber, has been licensed since 2018 and renting booths independently in other barbershops. Glide\u2019s job listing resonated with him because he had experienced homelessness himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been in this situation,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand how it feels.\u201d<\/p>\n Diles acknowledged that the work presents challenges that a conventional barbershop does not. Clients arrive carrying trauma, active addiction, the accumulated weight of years on the street. Some days require a different kind of steadiness.<\/p>\n \u201cThis type of job can be challenging because of just the different types of personalities,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have personalities that are kind of tainted because of what they\u2019re doing on the outside. You have to know how to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n What grounds him, he said, is proximity \u2014 both to the need and to the resources available to meet it. Diles recently received a housing voucher through the San Francisco Housing Authority and now lives seven minutes from the shop.<\/p>\n Some customers pop in off the street and request an appointment. Others get invited for a haircut after first accessing other Glide services. But before anyone reaches a barber, they sit down with Sababu Rountree.<\/p>\n Rountree is the shop\u2019s peer support specialist and substance-use disorder counselor \u2014 the first person clients encounter when they walk in. He conducts a brief intake and introduces them to Glide\u2019s menu of services: housing navigation, substance use recovery, employment readiness, and mental health connections.<\/p>\n \u201cFor so long in the African American community, it was taboo to say that you had a mental health issue,\u201d said Rountree, a San Francisco State University social work student. \u201cSo when I hear that they want help, while they\u2019re getting their hair cut, I\u2019m already trying to navigate and talk to behavioral health. I\u2019m trying to get them seen today, before they walk out that door.\u201d<\/p>\n Shorn again<\/p>\n Last week, Luis Jimenez, 29, settled into the barber chair, hoping to trim and tighten up his mid-length mane, tangled in part from tugging at it during stressful moments.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t had the money. It was really convenient to have it right here. I got a free meal, you know? God bless them,\u201d said Jimenez.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a little bit depressing, man. I was a little bit down in the dirt, but it\u2019s been a little better now.\u201d <\/p>\n On Thursday, Nick Shuford got a haircut \u2014 his first in a long time, he said \u2014 and when he looked in the mirror, something shifted. He said he felt good \u2014 a lot better.<\/p>\n Before he could say much more, he was heading down the sidewalk toward clothing that the Glide team had helped arrange for him. Staffers watched him go.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce he looked in the mirror,\u201d one observed, \u201che was ready.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n What the window shows<\/p>\n From the chair, facing Ellis Street through The Shop\u2019s glass front, the view is the same for both barbers, every shift.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a great need,\u201d Gillum said. \u201cAnd the need is immense.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she and Diles are frequently overrun with clients, and the country should be paying attention.<\/p>\n \u201cThis model should spread to other communities that are in desperate need,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no shortage of work.\u201d<\/p>\n Glide aims to have served at least 100 Black men over 50 by the end of June \u2014 with the secondary goal of connecting at least half to some form of treatment. Staff are tracking every referral and following up, addressing barriers as they come: transportation, anxiety, logistics.<\/p>\n Rountree said he already knows it is working, not because of any numbers but because of what he has seen.<\/p>\n \u201cThey may look disheveled when they come in,\u201d he said. \u201cThey may be distressed. But when they leave here \u2014 after a fresh haircut, after hearing about services, after having someone listen \u2014 they\u2019re hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Shuford gets a cut at The Shop inside Glide Memorial Church. | Source: Morgan Ellis\/The Standard The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2780,16615,37854,13259,109726,1493,2093,58151,101,103,102,104,106,105,13528],"class_list":{"0":"post-245095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-addiction","9":"tag-barbershop","10":"tag-crisis-in-streets","11":"tag-drug-overdose-crisis","12":"tag-gilde-memorial-church","13":"tag-homelessness","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-overdoses","16":"tag-san-francisco","17":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","18":"tag-san-francisco-news","19":"tag-sf","20":"tag-sf-headlines","21":"tag-sf-news","22":"tag-tenderloin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774966089_125_-S3840x6827-FPNG.png\"\/)
Bridget Gillum at her haircutting station. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely rewarding and satisfying to know that the resources are here,\u201d she says.Where care meets the chair\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774966090_646_-S3840x5760-FPNG.png\"\/)
Michael Diles, who has experienced homelessness, at his haircutting station. \u201cI understand how it feels,\u201d he says. | Source: Morgan Ellis\/The Standard<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774966091_883_-S3840x5757-FPNG.png\"\/)
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774966092_786_-S3840x5757-FPNG.png\"\/)
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