San Francisco’s Glide Memorial offers haircuts, social services for people seeking reformation

By CBS Bay Area

San Francisco’s Glide Foundation has inaugurated “The Shop,” a new program that pairs free haircuts with access to health services and community support inspired by the historic role of barbershops in Black communities.

Michael Diles believes you can tell a lot about a man by his hair.

“A person that has a taper like this, they’re, they’re more business-oriented,” Diles remarked as he cut a client’s hair. “So I know that this, this gentleman right here, he’s about his business.”

Before clients stumble into his chair, their cuts sometimes tell a difficult story about homelessness and drug use. 

“Our community has disproportionally been underserved,” Diles said.

His clients are the prized customers at Glide’s latest project, “The Shop,” where barbers are more like therapists. Their clippers act as tools to help people get off the streets.

The idea behind The Shop is to attract customers for a free haircut before providing counseling or recommending drug recovery services. But the target audience is specifically older Black men.

“It’s really a place of fellowship,” Diles said. “In the African American community, the barbershop is where you come together, and you talk about how your week was, concerns, issues, community, community, relative events that’s going on that you might know about.”

According to Glide, Black men aged 50 and above make up 12% of overdose deaths in San Francisco, despite representing 1% of the population.

“We have peer counselors, behavior councils that you know, we meet with them and talk with them and try to help them,” manager Ishmael Burch said. 

Burch says all are welcome here, and the shop’s doors will always be open.  

“When they get out of that chair, look at one of them. Couldn’t get out the mirror. He just stayed in the mirror,” Burch said.