San Francisco has only one social issue that matters: homelessness. Our streets are filled with people in wretched conditions: mentally ill, addicted, just plain fucked up. We're a city that thinks it's compassionate to give a junkie $410 a month. We're a city that's incapable of offering real help.

The SF Chronicle is running a five part series on homelessness this week, presumably timed to go with the mayoral election. The first article Shame of the City: Homeless Island is heartbreaking excellent journalism. So are the photos.

In between stints at panhandling, the Islanders sleep, shoot heroin, drink or smoke crack or cigarettes. When they eat, it's not much, mostly sweets. ...

"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 fucking up, we're going to keep fucking up."

politics
  2003-11-30 16:41 Z