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Robert Brown had tried everything for his pain, from acupuncture to massage to chiropractors.

By Marisa Kendall

CalMatters

A 59-year-old Army veteran who spent decades living on the street, Brown has a crushed disk in his spine and nerve damage to his thigh. What finally helped him feel better wasn’t medication or traditional physical therapy.

It was a weekly 20-mile bike ride with other homeless and formerly homeless San Diegans.

“I’m telling all my providers at La Jolla hospital I’m feeling better than I felt in a decade,” he said, “and they all say it’s the bike.”

Brown rides nearly every Thursday morning with a cycling program started by homeless services provider Father Joe’s Villages. It’s part of a handful of programs run by a variety of different organizations, all aimed at getting unhoused Californians — who are statistically more likely to have health problems — to exercise with a community. The Skid Row Running Club in Los Angeles organizes regular early-morning runs for people at risk of homelessness and addiction. Back on My Feet organizes runs for unhoused people across the country, including in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And Street Soccer USA offers soccer programs to people who are homeless, in recovery or living at or below the poverty line in cities including Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco.

Deacon John Roberts leads the San Diego bike rides, and said while biking on its own doesn’t get people into housing, it’s the best way he’s found to help people feel better physically and mentally as they navigate the arduous road out of homelessness.

“Bike riding, it gives people…physical, mental, spiritual, all of that well-being,” he said. “And it’s social.”

Living on the streets is hard on the body, and people without housing are less likely to get proper medical care. Nearly half of the unhoused Californians surveyed by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative in 2023 described their health as fair or poor, and 60% reported having at least one chronic health condition. Among the most common chronic health problems were hypertension, asthma, heart conditions and diabetes.

But exercise programs geared toward homeless participants are few and far between, and research on their outcomes is limited. A U.K. study looking at the benefits of exercise among unhoused people found the majority of participants improved their mental health and blood pressure.

Robin Petering led yoga classes for homeless young people in the Los Angeles area for about four years, before her classes came to a halt at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

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Petering, who serves as executive director of youth homelessness organization Young People to the Front, aimed to make yoga inclusive for everyone. She wanted to quash the stereotype that it’s for “the rich white lady in her Lululemons,” and wasn’t fazed if her classes were in noisy buildings or her clients were wearing skinny jeans. They focused on gentle stretching and breathing techniques. If clients couldn’t or didn’t want to get on the floor, they spent the class sitting in a chair.

Young people who are homeless often experience trauma and violence, Petering said, which can cause them to have poor impulse control and be quick to get into fights. That can hurt their chances of getting out of homelessness — fighting may lead to getting kicked out of a shelter.

That’s where yoga helps, Petering said. She and her team studied 58 homeless young people who started practicing yoga, and found that after two months their mindfulness increased (judged by their answers to questions such as “I criticize myself for having irrational or inappropriate emotions”) and the number of fights they reported getting into decreased.

Yoga by itself doesn’t end young people’s homelessness, Petering said. But, she said, if it can help them learn better self control, it can make it easier for them to get into housing.

Most of the people who participate in the San Diego biking program hear about it because they already receive other services from Father Joe’s, whether they live on the street or in the nonprofit’s shelters and housing facilities. A typical ride has between six and 10 riders, Roberts said, and always includes a stop for lunch — often at In-N-Out Burger. Father Joe’s lends everyone a bike, and after each participant rides 100 miles — which usually takes about five weeks — Father Joe’s gives that rider a donated bike, helmet and lock to keep. After another 100 miles, each rider gets a bus pass. So far, the program has given away more than 70 bikes.

“The idea then is you have the freedom to ride whenever you want, to go wherever you want,” Roberts said. Most of their riders don’t have a car.

The rides started nearly a decade ago, but paused early in the pandemic. Roberts took over and re-launched the rides in the fall of 2020, and also added the earn-a-bike program.

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Brown started riding with the group in 2022.

“I hadn’t been on a bike in 20 years,” he said. “It was absolutely horrendous and just not my cup of tea. I’m a weightlifter, slow-moving type of guy.”

Now, he’s logged nearly 2,000 miles. He’s maintained his subsidized housing at a Father Joe’s building where he pays 30% of his income in rent, he’s not drinking, and he’s going to therapy.

“I feel a lot better now than I did then,” he said.