Once they landed on the streets, they were caught in a perpetual cycle. Call 415-777-8815, or email Whether writing about politics or personalities, Phil Matier has informed and entertained readers for more than two decades about the always fascinating Bay Area and beyond. Many of the mentally ill women he encountered had been sexually abused or exploited as children.Just hearing the stories took a toll on Okin. The blend of scoops, insights and investigative reporting can be found every Sunday, Monday and Wednesday in the Chronicle.SF homeless tents, once seen as problem, now seen as path to coronavirus social distancing
“I would come home the end of the day, sometimes feeling connected and exhilarated, but often feeling sad, with a lump in my throat,” he says. I worked and paid taxes for 12 years. SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) — A Bay Area photographer has given away thousands of free headshots to homeless clients and she says the project hasn’t … “I wanted to help readers see that, when they pass someone on the street who is sleeping, they should try to remember: That person has a story.”In the book, Okin pairs photographic portraits with extended quotes from his subjects, offering context only when needed. From the Tenderloin to the Castro to the Richmond, the shelter-in-place order has caused an explosion of homeless tents popping up on sidewalks all across San Francisco — and it comes with the blessing of the city.With the city’s already crowded shelters unable to provide the required social distancing, city officials have decided tents are the next best thing. “If you have a big nose, well, no one can blame you,” he says. “Behind the rags and the carts and the strange behaviors—behind the stigma of poverty and mental illness—are human beings with a lot of the same hopes and feelings, joys, frustrations that the rest of us have,” he says. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton Reuters / Thursday, February 27, 2020 He’d rather let his readers experience the stories as he did. Soon, he had burned through his money, lost his apartment, and was abandoned by his fiancé. But one day I was caught with a tiny bit of pot in my urine and was fired on the spot.”It was devastating. Given the right programs, he knew that many of his subject could pull themselves out of the abyss. Jeff spent his early years fearing his mother would kill him. I've been homeless since I was 19 years old. Now he’s been clean for more than a year and landed a paid, part-time job with the program that assisted him. Subscribe today and get a full year of Mother Jones for just $12.It's us but for your ears. As one subject puts it, “Living on the street is so bad, you have to be either stoned or crazy to bear it.”Mental illness was also common, but there was often an associated history of childhood trauma, abandonment, and mistreatment.
Too much stress, too much exposure to bad weather, too many heroin injections.” But, with the help of the program, he was placed in housing and assigned a social worker, who he says saw him every day for a year. “Being a garbage man was everything to me. “I wanted to know about the details.”So, he started asking. When I lost that, I lost everything.”Jeff’s is one of the many stories of homelessness chronicled in Still, as he passed them daily on the streets of the city where he lived and worked, he began to wonder about who they really were. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mary "told me she had once been very beautiful, but that was a long time ago." Here's what you need to know to start your day
“Crazy, isn’t it?”There are even tents in North Beach, an area that for years prided itself on being tent-free.“I mean, what the hell do you tell somebody when they are looking for shelter?” Supervisor Tents are also reappearing along Division Street, where the late Mayor At Dolores and Market streets near the Castro neighborhood, a three-tent encampment has settled in just a few feet from Clinton Park, the small street where, to the scorn of homeless advocates, residents placed boulders on the sidewalk last year to keep tents from going up.“I understand the need for the tents, but there are a growing number of encampments that are not practicing social distancing. “Even when you heard the stories that these people had—abused, neglected. San Francisco residents reported more than 30,000 cases of poop to authorities in 2019, city records show. On some streets, there isn’t even room on the sidewalk to walk,” Tenderloin Housing Clinic Executive Director “Fern, Willow, Myrtle are all just off the chain,” Peskin said of the small streets that branch off of Van Ness Avenue.There is a sinister side to the tents problem in the Tenderloin as well — criminals use the tents and the homeless as cover.“The alleys are filled with people who are high as a kite, and they are basically controlled by two drug dealers and a pimp.” said one city worker to whom The Chronicle granted anonymity in accordance with its Police officers, Public Works staff and the city’s Homeless Outreach Teams all hit the streets and alleyways regularly to clean out the garbage, wash down the sidewalks and try to get people to observe the 6-foot social distancing rule.At the same time, however, the beat cops say they have been told not to take down the tents, leaving them with no legal hammer if someone refuses to keep his distance from others in the tents.One option under consideration is to place more people into some of the “But thinking there will be rooms for everyone is pretty much pie in the sky,” Mandelman said.Another option being considered is using empty parking lots as temporary campgrounds, with the city providing water, sanitation and regular garbage removal.“A good solution for the interim, but no way is it humanitarian to have people living forever in encampments,” Friedenbach said.Which raises the question of how long the tents will be allowed to remain.The need to shelter in place will end with time, but San Francisco will still have a housing crisis and a homelessness crisis.The city still had no long-term solution for either crisis, but it has more tents — everywhere.San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. She suffered from delusions and was shuffled in and out of mental health facilities.