SAN JOSE — Every night, Richard Hess sleeps in Cupertino — outdoors — anywhere he can. But on Tuesday morning, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and other dignitaries will be on the homeless man’s turf, chatting him up about the gleaming new undertaking that has kept Hess busy for weeks.

Hess will tell them all about the Kartma Street Cafe — the coffee cart launched by a program effectively battling poverty — as he and three others fete the big shots at a “grand opening” of the cart operated by homeless and near-homeless baristas.

“The Downtown Streets Team (DST) gave me back my dignity and self-respect,” said Hess, 44, a curly-blonde with an electric personality, who nightly slips into the shadows and back alleys of Cupertino. In that tony city, Hess explained, the police don’t encounter many homeless people and so are not so set on searching them out and chasing them away.

“And now Kartma is helping me resolve to change my life,” said clean and sober Hess, who will soon put a newly secured housing voucher to good use after five years of living on the streets. “I want to do everything I can to get a roof over my head and to make sure my homeless situation won’t ever happen again.”

This new cart — intended to be the first of many — is what DST calls a “social enterprise” by the agency, which operates in Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, San Rafael, San Jose and soon in San Francisco. DST wants to keep helping team members get work, but also to actually employ them at a living wage, while giving them a platform for spreading the word to other homeless people.

“I’m not just out here slinging coffee,” said Hess, who arrives at 7 a.m. each morning to roll out and set up the complicated cart by 8 a.m. during the week. “I’m out here talking to other homeless folks about joining the teams and getting off the streets. When I say to them, ‘I know what you’re going through,’ they trust me. They know it’s not bull.”

Howard Roy LaPierre, 60, a homeless man who said he was proudly clean and sober for 37 days, called the Kartma Street Cafe, “the sweetest thing I ever seen.” He is close to joining DST because he is “too sick, tired and weary” to continue to be homeless. “I been to different cities and states, and none of them have anything like this to help out homeless people with a real job.”

Fresh clientele

Sitting proudly at the corner of Market and Santa Clara streets, the unit boasts a black-and-white, arched awning that reads: “The Kart with heart” and takes up a slice of sidewalk offered freely by The Glasshouse, a major party-event venue. In just a couple of weeks, the cart has slowly built a clientele in search of a unique, caffeine alternative.

“Their mocha is as good as anything Starbucks serves,” said a smiling Bob Gundert, an attorney who spotted the cart a week ago near his law office. On Monday, Gundert was watching Hess meticulously fashion his foamy, frothy favorite on a shiny La Marzocco espresso machine.

“At first, I tried it just to help the homeless,” said Gundert, “but then I tasted it and realized they are making very good stuff. And, by the way, the (four) folks out here are friendly and nice.”

Eileen Richardson, the executive director of Downtown Streets Team, was once the tough nut CEO of Napster. But for more than a decade, she has been working against homelessness because it was an issue that touched her heart and her executive’s drive.

“We used to regularly go down and haul out trash and debris from The Jungle,” said Richardson of San Jose’s infamously massive and dangerous homeless encampment — now permanently cleared. Today, she works with her son, Chris Richardson, the regional director of DST. “We realized that the best plan is to give the homeless access to meaningful work, and that allows them to become self-sufficient.”

Employing a combination of courts, case workers and useful tasks, DST members wear bright yellow T-shirts that identify them as “good guys working to improve their city and their lives,” says Richardson. In exchange, the team members get small stipends, discount cards, case management and various services to help them get and stay employed.

Kartma will likely be followed next year by a tuk-tuk, a motorized cart that will open new, mobile possibilities. The current cart, without a motor, was “an old ratty thing” according to project manager Rob Sanchez. It was refurbished to code and to strict public health standards at a cost of nearly $40,000 in matching grants and crowd funding.

Grief to great

Another barista, Shannon Giovacchini, constantly moves around the 6-by-3 foot push behemoth, wiping and double checking that all systems are go for producing coffee drinks, a number of teas and “the best hot chocolate in town.”

“We are still working out the kinks,” says Giovacchini (joe-vah-KEE-nee), who recalls eight years ago when her life, after the consecutive deaths of her mother and grandmother, no longer seemed worthwhile. After struggling with grief for about a year, “I went to the train station in Palo Alto and walked up and down the platform,” she said, “trying to figure out the best way to leap in front of a train.”

Somehow, she wound up at the Sunnyvale Armory, sleeping for weeks with other homeless denizens, and soon DST put her to work and started her on a life-changing process.

“The team saved my life,” said the upbeat Giovacchini. “I got to move at my own pace and meet my own goals. It was not a handout, but a hand up.”

Kartma got big help from 4-year-old Chromatic Coffee, an independent roaster in San Jose. They designed the cart and taught the team members how to grind and prepare a variety of coffee drinks from a “special blend” Chromatic made for Kartma.

“The Kartma blend is not bright, wild, crazy or fruity,” said Otessa Crandell, a Chromatic co-founder. “The Kartma blend is approachable, chocolatey and comforting.”

And what about the whole concept of a coffee cart to help employ homeless people?

“We live in San Jose, and we all know about the terrible issue of homelessness,” said Crandell. “To create something that helps this situation by paying people a living wage is an extremely worthwhile undertaking. That’s why we gave everything to Kartma at cost. It was the right thing to do.”

Contact David E. Early at 408-920-5836. Follow him at Twitter.com/DavidEarlySr.