On The Streets Of San Francisco

I live in the same neighborhood as Joseph Johnston. San Francisco’s rent-control and just-cause-for-eviction laws have allowed me to keep my apartment for twenty years. I immediately recognized four of the people in Johnston’s photo essay, but I didn’t know their names or any of their stories until I read the captions. Seeing Johnston’s photos and reading about his conversations left me feeling friendlier toward my unhoused neighbors. It’s going to take more than empathy to end homelessness in the United States, but we’ll be motivated to make it happen only when we start seeing all of our neighbors as human beings who have the right to decent housing.

The photographs and stories of unhoused people in Joseph Johnston’s photo essay “On the Streets of San Francisco” [February 2023] touched me. As a little girl in Los Angeles, I was threatened by a man brandishing a knife on a public street. When I was older, I was assaulted by a woman who appeared to be living on the streets of Portland, Oregon. She yelled at me and pulled my hair. I was with my elderly mother-in-law, and I felt scared for her safety, too.

Later in life I volunteered at a seasonal warming shelter for unhoused people, but I always signed up for the night shifts, when most of the guests would be asleep, so I wouldn’t be called on to interact with them much. I have always felt ashamed of this fear of people who lack shelter. I know perfectly well that not all unhoused people are mentally ill or addicted to drugs and that very few are violent. I’ll never know how much of my irrational fear stems from my first encounters with people on the streets, but I know one thing: I need to get over it. Johnston’s photos are helping me do that.