The homeless situation I saw in both Los Angeles and San Francisco was pretty dire. In L.A entire blocks located downtown have become tent towns, home to those who don’t have one. Its a grim sight to see, and the scale of the problem is quite staggering. It looks like something out of a dystopian sci-fi like “Escape from New York”. What is even more painful is that apparently Californians voted to add a small per cent of their tax dollar specifically to raise money to combat the ever-increasing homelessness but it is very evident that money has yet to be allocated as nothing has improved.
In San Francisco, it is equally as bad. Like in L.A they have all been moved to one area (the Tenderloin in their case) so they can be kept out of sight to the majority of residents. In London, we have a possibly an equally bad problem but it is maybe not as noticeable as they are scattered everywhere rather than in just one district. The other difference is, in London, you do see a lot of compassion and sympathy towards the homeless. Over there, from what I saw of the people who passed them, they not only ignored them but they also seem afraid of them. This is not to say the Californians don’t care for them, they do, as cleary shown in their decision to vote for greater funding to tackle the problem, but the treatment of them on the street is different to here.
One night we were in San Francisco, having a smoke outside our hotel which was right on the edge of a block chock full of homeless and a guy came up to us and asked for some money and we gave him a few dollars and he was so touched he walked off and then came back to express his gratitude, not just because we have given him something but because we had treated him like a human being. He told us he had come to San Fran to get work, ran out of money and him and his family, who were also living with him on the street in a tent had got stuck there and were now trapped. He was the sweetest guy and it broke our hearts to speak to him. What we must endeavour to do is remind these people, who have fallen on hard times, that it is not their failure, it is society’s. It is us who have failed them, not the other way round.
A short while after this, another woman came up to us (pictured below) and she sung us an incredible rendition of a soul track and she poured all her emotion into it and it was truly beautiful. And then my friend Phil, hugged her like she was family and that was also truly beautiful.
We must never forget that no-0ne is born homeless. Every person you see on the street could be any of us who have just had a really really shit run of luck.