I'm from San Francisco. I grew up here and I've lived here most of my life.

After high school, for about four and a half years, I was homeless.

I'm really good at programming computers, if it wasn't for that I might be homeless still.

I had emotional and social problems that I've been able to overcome. I'm one of the lucky ones. Many of the people I knew are dead, but in this age of instant connectivity and paranoia about surveillance I'll never know the fates of most my friends. We might as well be a lost tribe, uncontacted in the primeval forest. Except of course, that we weren't lost. Our lives played out in the same great concrete jungle/stage that yours does. Very few people wanted to find us.

That brings up an important thing, and this is as good a place to say it as any.

From the utmost bottom of my heart: Thank you.

To all those who gave of themselves and helped a random, smelly, weird homeless kid who you'll never see again, THANK YOU. I owe you my life. If it wasn't for the people who live the truth of our inherent connection with each other, who are moved by compassion and empathy to help selflessly, without asking for anything in return, I would certainly be dead, or worse: homeless and crazy in San Francisco. (heh heh)

I'll never cease from helping everyone around me so long as I draw breath because I owe the world my life.

If you have not been as fortunate as I have then here is the reason why you should do the same anyway:

We are one.

That homeless person there? That's YOU.

She's your mother, he's your father, that guy mumbling and shitting over there, he's your own son.

This is both metaphysical and very physical and real. The idea that we are separate individuals who can cordon off the parts of the world that we don't like is not real, not true. It's a "category one" error.

Here's a secret I learned on the street: The single most horrible sin we commit daily is to pass by a homeless person without acknowledging that person's humanity.

It's a monstrous crime.

You feel it every time, deep down, and it hurts, right there in your very soul.

It hurts.

There's nothing you can do or say, no ration argument you can make, that can obviate that bond. Nothing breaks it. As long as you draw breath you are owned and owed, one of us. Truly there are no individuals, to think so is fantasy, to live it, nightmare.

It seems like you grow callous but you don't, not really. Down under all that other B.S., not even that deep really, you feel it still. To turn away from another is like killing a part of yourself.

Homelessness is a symptom of a sick society. It's not the city government's problem, it's the whole city's problem, indeed the whole nation, the whole planet. We have emotional scars that prevent us from forming a coherent response to the situation (that's the only way so much money could be spent and have so little effect on the problem.) The issue isn't a matter of money (we have SO MUCH) it's a matter of spirit.

The individual homeless people would disappear as if by magic if we could just get our minds aligned with our hearts, because there is plenty of actual help and resources.

The very essence of the homelessness problem is that we, as a society, have to "break ourselves" and become humble. That's the only way for us to be vulnerable enough to reach out and heal the psychic and spiritual wounds at the root of it. An example: Try to imagine D. Trump manning a homeless food serving line. He's wearing an apron and spooning out hearty soup to people and he really gets it. What doea THAT do for your noggin?

P.S. Bonus campfire story: Here's hoping YOU never get, like, schizophrenia or something and wind up homeless yourself. It could happen. One of the scariest things that can happen to you is to get to know a few homeless people who were once JUST LIKE YOU! Mwoooo-hahhahahaha! Homelessness is something that only ever happens to someone else. Right? Nothing so tragic could ever happen to YOU to break you down and leave YOU shambling and covered in your own mess in a city full of people who don't care. Of course not, you're a good person. Homeless never happens to good people. That wouldn't make sense, would it? That wouldn't be fair. We all know the world is a fair place, right?

Let's talk about something else.