San Francisco’s homeless
Monday, December 1st, 2003
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Our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, doesn’t always get the highest marks for journalism since Pulitzer winner Herb Caen passed on. But the current five-part Shame of the City series on our homelessness problem stands out. Kevin Fagan combines several months of on-the-street reporting (accompanied by photographer Brant Ward) with as unopinionated a presentation as possible. Why are there so many homeless people in SF? Well duh, because rents are high (even Paul Krugman has criticized the city’s policies), but also for a mix of other reasons that vary wildly from one person to another. Fagan avoids the standard mistake of lumping everyone on the street into one generic profile.
