I built a park for street people in 1979. The park had benches, chemical toilets, grass and basketball hoops. It was a gathering place for the downtown winos, drunks and people who lived on the streets most of the time.
The significance for me was the emergence of the term ‘homeless’ in 1981. Two years later. The term came from New York.
A misnomer. These people were not ‘homeless’. Many had a place to sleep, either with friends, relatives or in their own rental unit. The terminology was wrong. We now suffer, as we usually do from bad language.
San Francisco currently spends close to $100 million a year to provide shelter for this group of people who don’t need shelter; solely because they are called ’homeless’ by their advocates and everyone else.
The City spends an additional $600 million in other services from hospital care to ambulance services and police time for this population in addition to faux-housing.
Street people are not homeless. It is now and has been for 45 years an urban population that doesn’t want to work, prefers to be stoned (on any available drug) and can not accomplish the minimum requirements necessary to enter ordinary life. Like getting somewhere on time, having a phone, being sober for two days, having a mailing address or bathing regularly.
They don’t want the ordinary life, and with our fucked up use of the language, pretending they lack homes, we are unable to comprehend the nature and life of street people.