Amanda Erickson wrote a poignant column on AtlanticCities.com in which she responds to a couple of heartless posts by San Franciscans who advocate that the homeless should be hidden away.
I get it. Getting yelled at on the street, turning people down when they ask for something they need, wondering whether the voices the guy behind you clearly hears in his head could lead him to commit some sinister act? It's exhausting. But going from exhaustion to embracing the idea that, somehow, a city street should be a place with a price of admission (cost of entry: success, a start-up, a nice home) is not just offensive, it's corrosive to the very idea of what a city is and who it should serve.
(And the homeless person pictured in the photo is a woman who had cancer surgery nine months ago.)
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