Damn

When I lived in the Bay Area and would go to San Francisco, I always used to take two packs of smokes with me, one generic - one Marlboro. When I emerged from the BART station, I would light up a Marlboro and get ready for the requests for a cig. By the time my first one was done, the generic pack would be gone. I would be in a "safe" area by then and not be bothered anymore. It was a small price to pay to go there.

When I lived in the city, I found this to be unacceptable. Hit up at home, on the bus and near my job downtown was too much. I learned quickly not to walk with large amounts of change in my pocket. Bums hear it. And they follow you and beg until you give them some.

By the time I was there a year, I just looked right through them, right past them and right over them. They put the pee on the sidewalks and the broken bottles in front of my apartment and smelled up the buses. If I saw someone giving them money, I would just shake my head. No one buys food with it. Might as well give them the heroin yourself, I would think.

Where am I going with this? The SF Chronicle has an amazing and eye-opening series of articles about "Homeless Island." It tells the tales of a group of homeless drug addicts and prostitutes that live on a traffic island. It is harsh and real and well worth your time.

"We want to get off the street, but I got to tell you true," he said. "Unless they take people like us and put us somewhere where we can't keep f -- ing up, we're going to keep f -- ing up."

(article found at boingboing)

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