What did you experience the last time you encountered a homeless person? I often ask this question to my friends, and to be fair, it’s not their favorite conversation topic. Most of them report experiencing a mix of sadness, anger, guilt and fear. Rather than seeing a fellow citizen, the encounter reminds them of one of the most pressing issues of San Francisco, that seems too big to solve.
When I moved to San Francisco about a year ago, I felt exactly the same. Coming from ‘socialist’ Amsterdam, I struggled to deal with the social inequality in the city. The easy way out was to ignore the issue and pretend I didn’t see the homeless. But I also felt a deep curiosity to get to know the people that literally lived right outside the window of my yuppie apartment.
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