Tools: Latest Ex-tech –> Homeless In Sf

Last week, I helped build Super Bowl activations for DraftKings, Bud Light, and Spotify, turning San Francisco into a vice-centric Disneyland for the rich and famous. It was plastic. It was loud. It was profitable.

On Wednesday, I traveled from Berkeley to the Tenderloin. The rain was rushing down as I exited the Civic Center BART Station. I walked past the Main Library and water started filling my shoe through a hole I didn’t know existed. My sock got heavy. My foot got damp. Is there anything quite as awful?

I stepped off a Greyhound into the shadow of the Salesforce Tower. It is the second tallest tower on the West Coast. It’s a giant glass needle that penetrates the clouds. Sometimes it looks the eye of Sauron. It’s a monument to a corporation that monetizes human connection. It is a machine that measures a human being’s worth based on how much money they can make you.

I arrived at its base with no money, no phone, and an empty backpack.

Time was ticking. The sky was gray. I didn’t want to sleep on the ground, or venture to the airport, or have to nod off on short bus routes that ended at nowheres in the middle of the night.

I walked up Market Street to the Main Library. As I sat in front of the computer, it was the first time I truly acknowledged the harsh truth I had been avoiding: I was homeless.

I found a list of shelters. I started with what I believed to be the nicest one.

Dignity Moves on Gough Street. Seventy private rooms. A staff member looked at me through the fence as if I was an invasive species. He told me there was no one to talk to. I had to call The SFHOT line. I had to wait for the van to pick me up and drop me off where they find fit.

“I am in front of you right now,” I said. “I am a person. I don’t have a phone. I don’t want a phone. I am here. I am tired. This is a shelter. I need shelter.”

I drifted south to SOMA. I passed a tent handing out clean needles. I thought of Huxley’s Brave New World. Soma: the government-produced drug for artificial happiness. An opiate for the masses. I arrived at the next shelter. They asked if I was an addict. I told them I had a couple beers in a couple months.

Source: HackerNews