Project Homeless Connect held its 85th Community Day of Service at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Wednesday — and one of the volunteers handing out help had once been in line to receive it.

For more than two decades, Project Homeless Connect has run pop-up service marathons that try to compress months of bureaucratic navigation — medical care, housing support, legal aid, employment assistance — into a single day under one roof. Its 85th event points both backward, to a model born in San Francisco in 2004, and forward, to a city still trying to close the gap between progress and persistent need. The Dissent's focus is the human arc inside that machinery: a former client, Lorelei Webster, now working the other side of the table.

Project Homeless Connect held its 85th Community Day of Service at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Wednesday — and one of the volunteers handing out help had once been in line to receive it.

For more than two decades, Project Homeless Connect has been running pop-up service marathons that try to compress months of bureaucratic navigation — medical care, housing support, legal aid, employment assistance — into a single day under one roof. The 85th event is a milestone that points both backward, to a model born in San Francisco in 2004, and forward, to a city that's made measurable progress on homelessness while still leaving significant need unmet.

Lorelei Webster has been to a lot of these events. She knows what the tables look like, what the intake forms ask, what it feels like to walk through the doors not knowing if anyone will have an answer.

The difference now is that Webster is the one sitting on the other side of the table. On Wednesday she was volunteering for the fourth time — after having previously received services herself through Project Homeless Connect while experiencing homelessness.

"I hope they walk away with a smile and hope in their heart because you don't want them feeling dejected or that nothing will work out for them," Webster told NBC Bay Area at the event. "It can work out for them."

Her presence at the 85th Community Day of Service at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium was one of many such threads running through the crowd — people paying forward what they'd once been given, alongside first-time volunteers and longtime providers.

An organization that's been doing this since the city wasn't sure it would work

Project Homeless Connect launched in San Francisco in 2004, built on a simple but labor-intensive premise: instead of scattering unhoused residents across a fragmented network of service providers spread across the city, bring all the providers to one place, on one day.

The model took hold. The organization says it has now walked alongside more than 100,000 people experiencing homelessness or housing instability over more than two decades of operation, powered by more than 2,000 volunteers a year. Wednesday's gathering was the 85th large-scale event in that lineage, drawing services covering medical care, housing navigation, legal assistance, and employment support, all under one roof.

Progress — and the work that remains

Executive Director Pamela Grayson-Holmon offered a measured take on where San Francisco stands. "Is the city doing better? Yes. Is there progress? Yes," she told NBC Bay Area. "But there's more work to be done and we pride ourselves on being a partner."

Grayson-Holmon, a native of San Francisco's Western Addition who lists more than 20 years in affordable housing and community development, leads an organization the PHC describes as having gone through "a time of transition and change" in recent years. That framing — crediting progress without declaring victory — reflects the group's positioning in a city that has dramatically shifted its homelessness strategy, moving toward more enforcement-focused approaches and contested policies that PHC must navigate alongside the communities it serves.

Project Homeless Connect currently operates out of 1031 Franklin Street in the Civic Center neighborhood, with weekly on-site service hours and a mobile outreach component. The organization is a project of the nonprofit fiscal sponsor Community Initiatives.

Volunteers and individuals seeking services can reach the organization's resource line at 1-855-588-7968.