Rick Severns brought something home to me.
Not food or money, but the facts of San Diego life.
He’s homeless, after living 27 years in San Diego.
I came across Rick as he was dumpster diving near the financial district. Looking for food, anything, but finding mainly bottles and cans. I ask him how much he can make collecting.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/23/24900/
“Oh, $8, maybe $10 a day,” he says. “But you have to stick with it. There’s a lot of us out here.”
He came to San Diego when he was five. I don’t even ask what went wrong. Why should he tell me anyway?
Turns out he’s one of nearly 10,000 people in the county who don’t have a home, one in six of them military vets. One in four are like I suspect Rick is: chronically homeless.
Easy to ask from the sidelines, but can’t we do better than this?
Rick Severns brought something home to me.
Not food or money, but the facts of San Diego life.
He’s homeless, after living 27 years in San Diego.
I came across Rick as he was dumpster diving near the financial district. Looking for food, anything, but finding mainly bottles and cans. I ask him how much he can make collecting.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/23/24900/
“Oh, $8, maybe $10 a day,” he says. “But you have to stick with it. There’s a lot of us out here.”
He came to San Diego when he was five. I don’t even ask what went wrong. Why should he tell me anyway?
Turns out he’s one of nearly 10,000 people in the county who don’t have a home, one in six of them military vets. One in four are like I suspect Rick is: chronically homeless.
Easy to ask from the sidelines, but can’t we do better than this?