Benefield: One man’s quiet mission to give socks to the unhoused in Santa Rosa

Ray Tilton was doing some tidying up in his 400-square-foot downtown Santa Rosa apartment last spring when he realized he had an inordinate amount of socks.

It was more than a collection. He was hoarding.

And he knew why.

Tilton, now 59, had spent about two years in his mid-20s living on the streets in San Francisco.

Sometimes he’d crash with someone, anyone. Sometimes he’d rent a room by the night. Sometimes he slept on the street.

If he couldn’t find an alternative, he “showered” in a car wash.

He came to understand the value of a decent pair of clean socks.

And he knew that once socks get wet, there’s no way to dry them. Conditions like trench foot and infections can take hold.

Foot care is a serious health issue on the street.

“Just having clean, dry socks for your feet was always such a struggle. I think most people take it for granted,” he said.

He never really got over that feeling, so he found himself hoarding socks until very recently, even though he’s been housed for decades.

“I had probably a good couple hundred pairs,” he said.

But last spring, something changed.

“I don’t even know what prompted it but something just told me, you know what, I should just take a bag when I go out and give out these socks,” he said.

Tilton, who lives in downtown Santa Rosa, is a regular walker. He can walk for miles. He decided to use his walks as a way to distribute all of his new socks.

“People were so grateful, and it was just this epiphany — ‘Oh my god, of course, I know how that felt,’” he said.

It didn’t take long for Tilton to give away almost every pair from his own collection, so he started asking friends to chip in.

He posted his plan on a Facebook page. He described his regular walks before which he’d load up a reusable grocery bag with bundled socks.

He’d change routes, walking for miles, greeting people through closed tent doors or behind zipped up sleeping bags.

“The Joe Rodota Trail is heartbreaking,” he said. “I go all of the way out to FoodMaxx. I walk that far when I’m well enough.”

Sonoma County officials on Tuesday removed an encampment on the Joe Rodota Trail that had grown to approximately 30 unhoused people between Hampton Way and Dutton Avenue.

Those sweeps, Tilton said, are heartbreaking and can make it hard for him to find his “regulars.”

But he walks on.

Tilton, who was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS four decades ago, is six years removed from having throat cancer. And two bouts of COVID-19 have lately left him more tired than usual.

The bright green reusable grocery bags he uses to carry the sock bundles around can feel heavier as he walks. He sits to rest often.

But he hasn’t stopped, and by his tally, has handed out about 2,000 pairs of socks since June.

“I’m doing it, weather permitting, three or four days a week now,” he said. “So I’m reaching over 100 people a week now, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.”

When this project began, Tilton, a prodigious lifelong fundraiser and networker for all manner of charities and nonprofits, sent out the call to his contacts. Might anyone support his latest gig?

He was overwhelmed by the response.

Boxes of socks, sealed with Amazon packing tape, showed up outside of his sixth-floor apartment.

Gift cards arrived. Venmo donations showed up on his account.

“In less than two months, I had enough socks to last the year,” he said.

He’s mapped out the number of socks he needs to distribute weekly to cover the maximum number of folks on the street but also not wear out his generous supporters.

A friend has started a similar effort in the East Bay.

Tilton keeps donors and backers updated on a Facebook page he created under the moniker “Life Socks/Socks = Life.”

It’s the second iteration. He said he lost the first one in some kind of glitch.

But make no mistake, Ray Tilton knows what he’s doing.

Behind the chest-high stacks of boxes in his hallway hang frame after frame of certificates and awards and commendations.

From the California Assembly. From the California Senate. And also “The 40th Royal House & the Majestic Dove Court of Peace, Love, & Integration.”

There is a certificate from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declaring Sept. 22, 2002, “Ray Tilton Day in San Francisco”:

“Whereas Ray Tilton has contributed more than 15 years of community service and activism … Whereas Ray Tilton has served on numerous boards and committees including SMMILE, Castro Street Fair, AIDS Emergency Fund … Whereas Ray Tilton is a prodigious fundraiser, raising money for such charities as … Positive Resource Center, Camp Sunburst, LYRIC, Human Rights Campaign Fund and Gay Softball Teams …”

There’s more where that came from.

Tilton has spent his life fundraising, rallying friends for causes, putting his time and heart into projects of goodwill, many supporting those in the LGBTQ community.

The same people he connected with to support those causes are backing his latest effort.

A friend in Lake County has started a sock fundraiser at a local church. A partial shipment of the spoils collected arrived last week.

On Tuesday, more than 400 pairs of socks, neatly packed in two massive Fruit of the Loom boxes, arrived at the door of Tilton’s downtown apartment.

“I have huge resources with just people,” he said.

Plus, he’s incredibly affable.

“People just want to be in my orbit,” he said with a chuckle. “If I want to do something, people just don’t say no to me.”

The boxes lining his entryway tell me this is true.

“I don’t spend a lot of time talking about what I’ve done because I’m too busy doing what I’m doing,” he said.

On one recent walk, he handed two pairs of socks to a man.

“I turned around and looked and this guy was putting one pair on his hands,” Tilton said, his voice breaking.

That’s when Tilton started asking for donors to send gloves. And hats.

On Monday, one man on the Prince Memorial Greenway said no to Tilton’s offer before changing his mind.

That man normally ignores him, Tilton said. Monday was a win.

“It’s a lot,” he said. “There are times when I come home and cry. It’s a good thing because I’m getting it out.”

He’s careful on the street, but he approaches his walks with empathy. Because he’s been there.

He’s struggled with addiction. He’s lived on the street. His feet have been cold and wet.

“There is a whole culture and community among the unhoused that people don’t hear about,” he said.

He approaches with respect.

He calls out things like “Good morning, it’s Sock Man. Could you use a pair of socks?”

“I say ‘I’m not a bad person. I’m not a cop. I’m not here to do anything,’” he said. “Sometimes I never see their faces, I just see dirty hands outreaching from the tent, which is fine.”

Sometimes he feels like his sock walks are as much for him as they are for the folks he meets on the street.

His mood is buoyed with every interaction.

“Especially during the shutdown, I did it for mental health,” he said. “I was walking five to six days a week and five to six miles a day.”

And when he wasn’t walking streets and pathways and trails, he was organizing his prodigious haul of socks, pulled in from a steady flow of donations.

The entryway in Tilton’s apartment is now reduced to a narrow path between boxes stocked two and three high on either side.

One side is for donations shipped directly to him. The other is for his system of bundles.

He has socks separated by styles and thickness. Pairs are bundled with rubber bands. He’s set apart beanies and gloves.

Before sock walks he counts about 30 bundles, loads them into one or two reusable grocery bags and heads out.

On Monday, he met three men, all at different spots around the small park at the eastern end of the Prince Memorial Greenway.

One man, wearing sweatpants and a dirty plaid shirt, had on one glove and one black sock. His other foot was bare, resting in a shoe about three sizes too big.

The man accepted Tilton’s bundle.

Tilton kept walking, sweat beading his brow.

“It’s a drain,” he said. “But it’s a good drain.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.