Homeless Security

- A Project Engineer for a major restaurant chain.
- A former Berkeley City Commissioner
- A keyboardist for Slave
- A internationally published photographer


All homeless in the Bay Area. Sleeping on friends couches, shelters, transitional housing. And that's a sampling of the folk I spoke to TODAY.

All races. White, black, asian, Indian. Cultures. Backgrounds.

Former business owners, home owners, engineers, emigres, students, graduates...

"I had a HOUSE. Two cars. A mortgage. And now...."

After awhile you can tell who's who. Many are sharply dressed. Some even eat out daily.

But you cant hide that rambling walk, the walk without purpose.

You cant hide the need to kill time.

Suit and ties in the park. Interview briefcases suspiciously slim or overly full. High heels when there should be comfortable flats.

Barnes and Nobles full during the midday.

Newspaper reading at one in the afternoon.

After awhile some shed the pretenses, but they take care not to hang out in the same hangout spots.

The Cal-Berkeley libraries are usually full.

You start seeing the same faces every week, every day.


At night, you pick up on the multiples of RV's parked in random spots.

Snoring on quiet streets from cars, from bushes, by bikes...

Shapeless bundles in dark corners.

Talking at 2am.

You start being nicer to people.

A smile is valuable currency.

I havent been able to draw conclusions, yet.

Every time I think I have enough to start writing, the world wrinkles and I see more.

Talk long enough, and you WILL find, empirically speaking, that nearly half of the folk you encounter are familiar with this world.

Almost a proud rite of passage here.

Thats how you survive in one of the most beautiful and most expensive areas in the world.

An area few want to leave.

For this is home.