District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim spent last Wednesday night in a homeless shelter, on an evening when she was technically serving as Acting Mayor while Ed Lee was out of state. Kim has been interested in improving the shelter system since beginning her term last year, and Wednesday found her experiencing it first hand, lining up for a shelter-bed reservation, getting assigned one, and checking in 7 p.m. for a 12-hour stay at the Next Door Shelter at Polk and Geary.

What she says she found was "incredible love" and a "poignant" amount of support from other women who found out it was her first night there. A rep at Kim's office assures SFist that this wasn't an undercover operation and her identity was not a secret, but we've reached out to Kim herself to see what else may have happened in the course of the night, or if there were a lot of shelter beds left empty that night — we wouldn't want to think of some poor lady left out in the cold just so Jane could test the bed springs out!

Kim says she plans to hold a hearing on the shelter system and how it can be improved. One idea: use the lengthy period of time people must spend there for programs that help "empower people to come out of homelessness."

[Examiner]