Steve Goff is a bank robber. Ex-bank robber, he'll say, but still ...

Prison? Oh sure. His estimate is 13 federal facilities. He rattles them off so fast you can't write them all down: "Lompoc, Atwater, Victorville," and on and on.

His most recent stint was at La Tuna, a facility in Texas. He served 18 months in a plea deal for failure to appear at required meetings with his probation officer. He got out Aug. 1, checked into a halfway house in Florida and then came here.

Now he says he's changed. He's going to turn his life around, he says. Even Goff admits it sounds like the same old story.

"It's not the first time I have tried this," he says. "But I believe it will be the last."

Here's the twist. A support group of everyday people with little else in common thinks he's going to pull it off.

I was tipped to Goff by a San Francisco police officer who didn't want to be identified.

"He's a great guy. We've been trying to get him into housing since before Christmas," he says. "I don't know what the problem is. Maybe he's not homeless enough."

That seems unlikely. Goff lives with a couple of friends in an alley just off Market Street. He makes a nest of empty garbage cans, bundles into blankets and waits for the sun to come up around 5:30.

It was about 6 in the morning when Goff heard a woman screaming in the alley - that's how he met the Tenderloin police officers who are now working to get him housed.

"A guy was beating up a lady and trying to rape her," he says. "I went out to talk to him, settle him down, and he started screaming at me. Then the dude hits Mikey (one of Goff's pals) in the face with a cane. I said, 'Rick, throw me that mop handle. And we went to work on him.' "

Skeptics won over

Cops confirm that when they arrived, the group of homeless men had the suspect subdued and waiting for them. He was arrested, although because the woman declined to press charges the case went nowhere. Still, if you want to impress the cops, rescuing a potential rape victim and capturing the suspect is a good start.

Goff has won over everyone else one morning at a time. He stands at the exit to the Powell Street BART Station from about 6 in the morning until the commute tails off at 9 or so. He rarely misses a morning, wearing down the skeptics with persistent good cheer.

"How are you ma'am?" he says. "You're looking good today. Good morning, sir. Have a great day."

"In my honest opinion, I thought he was just like the rest of the homeless people," says Jasmine Miller, who commutes to work from Richmond. "Then I noticed that everyone else was begging, borderline harassing people. He didn't have a cup. He didn't have a sign. I said to him, 'You're not asking for anything?' He said, 'I'd be a fool to think anyone owes me anything.' He'd update me on how he was doing. He built a relationship. One day he said, 'Can I have a hug?' "

Somewhere the people who have met Goff over the years are nodding. That sounds like Steve.

Ron Tyler was an assistant federal public defender for 22 years. He handled Goff's cases more than once, most recently in 2008. I called him at Stanford University, where he is director of the Criminal Defense Clinic, and asked if he thought Goff could change his life.

'A great guy'

"What you're asking is if this is a con," Tyler says. "And it is not. He's a great guy, really warm and engaging. It doesn't surprise me that he would have a group of people who would rally around him. He definitely wants involvement in society."

Let's not kid anyone. Goff didn't volunteer it, but records show he has struggled with a laundry list of drug problems, from prescription drugs to meth to heroin.

"It is very common for folks in a condition similar to Steve to rob banks to have the money for their fix," Tyler says. "What I would say is in no instance was I aware of any violence. Steve is a gentleman."

Aisha Bolds, who works at USF, walked by Goff for days before she spoke to him.

"I met him in October or November," she says. "He would always speak - 'Hello, young lady' - and I would just smile. I stopped one day and I said, 'What's going on with you?' We got a chance to talk and he told me about his past. I just kind of had a connection to that."

Bolds became one of Goff's new friends. On a Friday night before Christmas, she asked him what he was doing for dinner. Goff shrugged.

"So we went to dinner at the mall," she says. "He's had some difficult circumstances. I just try to encourage him."

There's a theme there. Another supporter brought Goff Thanksgiving dinner. Goff jokes that the week before Christmas, he had to tell his well-wishers to stop bringing him holiday cards.

"They were murdering me with the cards," Goff says. "I was in tears."

The holiday outpouring sparked an idea for Miller, who checks in with Goff almost every morning. She created a link called "Help Steve Get a Home" at a crowdfunding website: www.gofundme.com/6wp8k8.

The site just opened, and the goal is $5,000. The problem is - and even Steve's biggest backers express this fear - that he may be tempted not to spend the money on housing.

Home of his own

"No way," Goff insists. "And that's a promise. All I want is my own space. I will spend it for a roof over my head."

Fingers crossed. There are lots of stories we take to in San Francisco - about love, food and style - but it seems the ones we like best are the ones of redemption. Who among us hasn't seen a homeless person on the corner and thought: What if we could get him housed, get him a job, and help him stay clean and sober? What if all he needs is a little break to nudge him over to a better life?

Who are we to say Steve Goff isn't that person?