Four years ago, after a long and desperate search for housing in San Francisco, I moved my daughter into a studio apartment on a seedy stretch of Market Street, between a tavern and what police described to me as a “parolee hotel.”
For a few years, things went well. My college-student daughter learned to coexist with the derelicts who hung out on street corners, bedded down in doorways and treated sidewalks like toilets. At least they didn’t panhandle or raise a ruckus. Some made a point of looking after her, and she respected the rhythm and rituals of their community.
Read more in the Los Angeles Times.