
The Street Kids of San Francisco - rohin
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/43085729257/the-street-kids-of-san-francisco
======
dewitt
Like another commenter on this thread, I've lived in the Haight for the past
nine years. And while the article is interesting and informative, it doesn't
quite paint a full picture (literally—the pictures aren't representative, that
girl is not a typical street kid by a long shot, she hasn't slept a day
outside in her life. Think camo and combat boots and pit bulls, not peace
signs and hacky sacks) of the underside of the street kid scene. There is also
a quite a bit of violence and a lot of negativity to be had, both to each
other, and to the community that they're visiting.

I see the street kids as guests in our extended home. When everyone is
peaceful and respectful I don't really have an issue. But when they are
violent, or a health risk (defecation on the sidewalk and on the stoops is a
real concern, and it happens all day every day), or harass my family or my
neighbors, I do take issue, and believe we need to set and enforce limits for
the safety of everyone.

As far as it being a lifestyle _choice_ for some. Indeed it is. But not for
all. It's a spectrum. Overall it's a good article, but it's not the whole
story.

Edit: And to the author, try walking around and doing those interviews after
dark some night. The perspective would be ... different.

~~~
moxie
I'm curious to know why you see them as a guest in your home, rather than the
other way around?

~~~
Locke1689
Presumably because he either pays property taxes or pays rent to someone who
uses it to pay property taxes.

Fundamentally, one can see people living on the street as belonging to a
complex subgroup in our society: one which can be both symbiotic and
parasitical.

It is symbiotic in the sense that it provides a culture with which many can
identify, especially those who have experienced hardship or difficult home
lives as children. In this way street communities can provide a sense of
catharsis -- almost a group therapy session. Belonging to a community can
provide mental comfort which can seem even more important than physical
comfort. In other words, street communities can take our tired, our poor, our
huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

However, in many cases they can also be parasitical. Consuming societies'
group benefits, in a way similar to herd immunity, while also spreading danger
in the community, either through violence or excessive drug use.

I think what many people, both in the street communities and not, may fail to
realize is that it is entirely possible that a street community can represent
a local optimum, but not a global one. There may be a way to provide people
both the sense of community they desire _and_ a way to integrate them into the
larger community so that they can contribute in more impactful ways.

~~~
moxie
There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the
midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of
nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started
walking down a dirt road.

After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly
hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple
tree.

The wobbly sat there enjoying the shade for 20 minutes, until a farmer came
across him. "You can't be here!" exclaimed the farmer, "This is my land!"

The wobbly looked up at the farmer and asked "Really? What makes it your
land?"

"What are you talking about you dirty tramp, I inherited it from my father!"
replied the farmer, almost bewildered at such an indignant question.

"Hmm, and what made it _his_ land?" asked the wobbly.

"Why, he inherited it from _his_ father!" replied the farmer, now really
angry. "It's been in my family for three generations!"

"And what made it your grandfather's land?" asked the wobbly.

The farmer, now barely able to contain himself, yelled proudly "Why! My
grandpappy _fought the indians for it_!"

The wobbly nodded, stood up, pulled back his sleeves, and replied "Uh huh.
Then I'll fight _you_ for it, _right now_."

The point being that a lot of these conceptions about who belongs and who
doesn't are based on private property, but that there fundamentally isn't any
real justification for private property. Even John Locke's attempts to justify
it break down.

I can understand two groups being in conflict with each-other, but I can't
understand conceptualizing one as the "guests" of the other group simply
because they don't own property.

~~~
johngalt
Here's a justification for private property. How will there _ever be an
orchard otherwise_? Orchards don't just burst spontaneously into existence.

Imagine that no one 'fought the natives for it'. Instead the land was a vacant
waste with no one living there and nothing growing there. Over the years
through hard work, dedication and sacrifice the land was amended and the trees
grew creating the orchard. The only thing the farmer asked for in return was
to sell his surplus. Lowering the cost of apples to all.

Then some jackass jumps off a train and expects it all handed to him for free
or he'll attack the farmer.

I can understand the idea of not wanting to participate in a capitalist
system, but I can't understand what makes someone 'evil' just because they've
created something that you haven't.

~~~
vacri
A nice turnaround, but in the story, the land wasn't a vacant waste, it was
acquired by force. The story isn't "Oh, you moved into emptiness and created
something, so I'll fight you", it was "you fought the people here before, so
I'll continue with your method of ownership".

Similarly, the wobbly wasn't demanding an apple, but enjoying the shade. Was
the farmer selling shade? Lowering the cost of shade to all?

The idea of a one-sided "fuck off, this is MY land" seems to be a new-world
Anglo thing - back in Europe a lot of countries have a form of right to roam
that sits in conflict with property rights. While there is certainly a 'my
land!' aspect, there's also the competing philosophical idea that people are
free to travel over it or use it recreationally

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Right_to_roam_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Right_to_roam_in_Britain)

~~~
dreamdu5t
It wasn't acquired by force by the farmer, it was acquired by force by the
great grandfather.

Either way, you disprove your own point. The farmer has a more legitimate
claim because he worked for it, he didn't attack someone for it like the guy
who showed up wants to.

~~~
vacri
My point was that the parent post was misrepresenting the original story. I'm
not sure how that's disproved by what you're saying.

------
eli_awry
I'm a 23 year old with purple hair, but I'm also a PhD student at a top 10
university for computer science. I've hung out in tons of squats and punk
houses, and briefly been a street kid, but I got a 2380 on my SATs. I lived in
a non-residential warehouse for months - months when I was taking Physics,
Linear Algebra, Computer Science and Sociology 321 - Class and Inequality.
I've dug through dozens of dumpsters, and I've hiked hundreds and hundreds of
miles on the Appalachian Trail. I've been in jail and won the prize for Best
Undergraduate Research at my university.

I fell out of touch with the anarchopunkier half of my friends when I got
serious about artificial intelligence and computer science - I love these
things and they're very important to me, and in the coffeeshops we always
talked about how to get rid of tyrants and inequality. I have always believed
in technology. OLPC, Ubuntu, Khan Academy, Coursera, solar panels, cell
networks - the list goes on.

Startup folks and street punks have a lot of similar ideas about what we want,
but really different aesthetics. The punks I've known are much more well-read
and just as bright as the grad students I spend time with now. On the other
hand, they're in denial about capitalism. Both groups have a lot to learn from
each other, if only they can look over the other's smarminess/smelliness.

~~~
md224
> On the other hand, they're in denial about capitalism.

Could you expand on the flaws in their disdain of capitalism? Or, if that's
too broad a question, perhaps direct us to some reading material on the
subject?

I don't mean this in a snarky or side-taking manner... in fact I'm struggling
with my own views on capitalism and would love to expand my knowledge on the
issue.

~~~
eli_awry
So part of the problem is their alternatives to capitalism. Which are mostly
primitivist (as in, destroy infrastructure) communist (in the central
planning, grey way depicted in i.e. The Dispossessed) or just kinda goofy. As
a lifestyle choice, living off the refuse of a bloated and exorbitant society
is actually quite sustainable until you need serious healthcare. As something
for everybody to do, a new way of governing, it fails because there will be no
society from which to absorb the waste. I think efforts to establish
autonomous, non-hierarchal, consensus-based organizations or communities
within capitalism is awesome. But ultimately, seven billion people are never
going to form some totally sweet Zapatista-style worldwide commune. At that
scale, the markets are going to be at work. Capitalism is inevitable.

My perspective is that appropriate solutions to this problem involve taxing
externalities (pollution, murderous working conditions that cost society), and
reducing the cronyism and corruption that breaks capitalism. Also deciding as
a society that we are better off if people are not involuntarily homeless or
hungry or dying and agreeing on a social contract to provide welfare.

I want to make the world a better place, so I choose to work on making more,
better, cheaper, smarter education available to everyone everywhere. And from
society's perspective, this is actually a good investment because it increases
human capital and also reduces future costs (as educated folks have fewer
kids).

I love communist farms and kibbutzim and I can absolutely imagine living on
one and participating in one of those societies. And if you hate capitalism,
that's a good way to protect yourself from it. But the farms and kibbutzim
themselves are still participants in a larger capitalist system.

~~~
dublinben
As someone who's just recently read The Dispossessed, I would be remiss if I
did not correct your characterization of it. The lunar society in that book is
quite clearly anarcho-syndicalist. Much of the conflict early in the story
stems from the syndicate structure of that society.

This should not be confused with Soviet-style centrally planned, state-
capitalist, 'Communism' if that's what your acquaintances called it. It should
also not be confused with _actual_ communism, i.e. a classless, moneyless,
stateless social order.

>Capitalism is inevitable.

Spoken like a true capitalist. Fukuyama would be so proud.

>the farms and kibbutzim themselves are still participants in a larger
capitalist system

If the revolutionaries had their way, they wouldn't have to be.

~~~
eli_awry
Well, the premise of The Dispossessed is that the anarcho-syndicalist society
actually becomes an oppressive monolithic power. As a result, the protagonist
is unable to find an outlet for his special talents, and has to turn to other
means of success.

I thought The Dispossessed did a very good job of showing the problems with
centralization of planning - it's an attempt at an anarcho-syndicalist commune
that self-defeats through strict social mores. I do think that syndicalism is
probably the best vision I've seen for an anarchist future - but ultimately,
either those syndicates would have to participate in capitalist trade, or they
would have to be controlled by some governing body, or they would have to be
totally self-sustaining. Just think about how difficult-to-produce drugs would
be distributed between communities. There can't be a producer in each one. So
are the producers of that drug going to just gift it? How can they sustain
themselves if they are making something difficult to produce that they are
only consuming a tiny portion of? Well maybe because they are so generous they
will get many gifts. This is starting to sound a _lot_ like something that
either has to be a market or centrally planned to me.

------
moxie
This article should really be titled "The Street Kids Of Hippy Hill." By going
to one place in order to get a feeling for "street kids," they've gotten an
extremely myopic view of that scene.

The full picture is much more varied. Traveler kids who go to hobo gatherings
would never be caught dead at a rainbow gathering. Rainbow family kids don't
drink, and alcohol is even forbidden at gatherings (where _nothing_ else is
forbidden). Gutter punks live to spange for 40s. Anarcho punks would rather
starve than fly a sign.

Each has its own music scene, its own values, its own social norms. For this
article to suggest that most street kids don't have a political analysis might
be true for hippy hill, but isn't true at all for the squatter scene (see
'homes not jails' and 'food not bombs' for instance).

~~~
grinich
Will you write a blog post about this?

~~~
peterwwillis
He has a few here: <http://www.thoughtcrime.org/stories.html>

IMO, learning about the sub-groups of the "street person" culture isn't going
to net you much useful knowledge. A lot of the differences between people here
are political, ethical or social (anarchists, hippies, gangs). At some point
you realize everyone's just living out a script.

------
ghshephard
The one question that I always ask (and instantly makes me unpopular) of the
hippie/transient/counter-culture types, is, "Do you realize you would all
likely be dead of hunger withing two to three weeks without a massively
efficient capitalist system supporting you?"

They are able to exist because of people who are willing to work to support
them. Even the communes rely on fertilizer, fuels, metals, foodstuffs from
2000+ years of increasingly efficient capitalists economies.

Don't get me wrong - I love spending a week to ten days out on the playa, and
have never had such a wonder experience of "community" anywhere else - but I
never, ever kid myself into believing that such a lifestyle is sustainable.

I don't like to use the word, "parasite", but I can't really think of a better
word to describe the Haight street pan-handlers/garbage divers. They can't
survive without people providing for them.

~~~
thisrod
Where I live, the answer might run as follows. For fifty thousand years, the
local hippies avoided starvation with a one-hour workday. Now that the place
is full to bursting point with slaves of some massively efficient system, they
have to work a bit harder.

And, unless you can photosynthesize, you're a parasite too.

~~~
corporalagumbo
Plants are just parasites of the sun man. And even the sun is just a rapist of
mass energy.

------
gtani
I would have written a different story. I lived 2 blocks from Haight and
Stanyan for a long time and I was connected to street kids by skateboarding
and guitar and being someone who talks to anyone (e.g I gave away a lot of
Dunlop jazz3 guitar picks). While there may be a few people on the streets
willingly (the new arrivals), and some are talented
musicians/artists/artisans, the author chose to ignore the violence and the
scourge of alcoholism and meth, the ones who have no family or safety net or
options. He didn't look in the backpacks and see pepper spray, sawed off
baseball bats, golf clubs and rocks (Skateboards are capable weapons also), he
didn't see people lose most of their teeth in a year, or the armed guards at
Whole Foods, stuff like that. The homeless are in the Haight becuase they
wouldn't last long in the Mission, South of Market, Potrero, places like that

------
nowarninglabel
As someone who has lived in the Haight-Ashbury for 9 years now, I can say this
is a well-written and balanced perspective. Although, it glosses over the
additional crime (mainly property theft, occasional assault) brought by the
street kids. The key thing noted here is that the vast majority of street kids
in the Haight are there by choice, up to and including the choice to panhandle
to make enough for $18 bags of organic dog food.

It's refreshing to read, because I'm tired of the two extremes usually
presented, either that the street kids are people to be pitied or trash to be
thrown out. The street kids are more just a fixture. Like the trees in Buena
Vista, they were not here originally, but they're a fixture now, and they'll
be here for quite some time to come.

------
Macsenour
U sed to work at the Round Table in Albany. It is quiet and not much happens
there. At that time the same owner owned my store, and the one in downtown
Berkeley. One night I was asked to fill in at the Berkeley store.

Tacked on the wall where you give your order is an "86" list. These are the
homeless that are asked to leave the instant they appear. All others are
allowed to stay as long as they don't disrupt the business.

I saw that list and laughed, but 10 minutes later a homeless man stood outside
the window and screamed obscenities at me as I worked. He was on the list, so
911 was called.

A little while later a "street kid" walked in and asked if we had spare
slices. I was about to say no, when the manager said sure, and handed over a
slice. When I asked I was told that when they made mistakes, put onions on a
pizze that called for no onions, they saved them and handed out slices to
those that asked nicely.

I guess it all depends on who and how you act.

------
nbroyal
I don't want to be insensitive, but some of these individuals' behavior smacks
of privilege. When I think about the fact that someone whose family "owns a
major medevac company" is taking up space at a shelter or panhandling on the
street, I get really frustrated. These are resources that should be used by
those who are really down on their luck and have no other option, not
someone/some group who wants to live out their bohemian fantasy.

If I knew I just gave five bucks to someone whose familial net worth trumps
mine 100 fold, I'd be irate.

~~~
lutusp
> When I think about the fact that someone whose family "owns a major medevac
> company" is taking up space at a shelter or panhandling on the street, I get
> really frustrated.

Just to play the devil's advocate, given a spoiled kid of wealthy parents on
the threshold of adulthood, would you prefer he stay in the ivory tower, or
experience the raw life of the street, even if only as a lifestyle tourist?

As it happens, there is a long tradition among the wealthy (not _all_ the
wealthy, but some) of making their kids experience ordinary life in advance of
making important decisions about the direction of their own life.

~~~
nbroyal
I see that as a false dichotomy. There are many other options between staying
in the ivory tower and playing homeless.

~~~
lutusp
> There are many other options between staying in the ivory tower and playing
> homeless.

Yes, there are. But one advantage of "playing homeless" is that you might run
into actual homeless people and find out about their lives.

~~~
nbroyal
I think you could do that just as easily without the lifestyle tourism.
Volunteering at a shelter/soup kitchen is something that comes to mind.

------
asah
hi-- Haight St shop owner and resident (Buyer's Best Friend Wholesale &
Mercantile, Haight @ Cole, bbfdirect.com), member of the Haight St Merchants
Association, own two other shops around town, happy to answer any questions.
Some FAQs: \- no, the street kids don't steal or bother us much, but also not
especially helpful. They and the shopowners largely keep to themselves. \-
yeah, the filth is unpleasant and bad for business. \- SIT/LIE hasn't been
abused much AFAICT-- it's gone into the cops' "tools" for dealing with people
who cross the line. Plenty of people sit on the sidewalks still, but now you
can get them to move if being polite doesn't work. As with any enforcement
tool, I'm sure there's some abuse and I won't defend it. The cops I've met are
thoughtful. \- we've had to call the cops only a handful of times - not bad
for a big city. \- cyclical/seasonal business and cost of living are bigger
annoyances than the kids. \- the Haight Ashbury merchants are as crazy as
anybody-- half of them want to kick out the bums, the other half feed them,
half want to legalize pot, the other half get more cops. The issues are
complex.

I second Dewitt's comments btw -- we know each other both from the 'hood and
from work.

------
politician
The legalization of marijuana will utterly destroy this community. From the
article, it sounds like weed facilitates a significant part of the economy as
both a trade good and a consumable while LSD is a luxury item and hard drugs
are not tolerated. Cheap weed will probably induce a net loss of value (that
being the value of knowing how to procure it, and trading that value).

~~~
teebs
It's fascinating that these kids are the opposite of the usual drug dealer
stereotype. Based on my limited knowledge, drugs (in particular marijuana)
trace back to either small individual growers, medical marijuana patients, or
a gang or cartel. (As far as I know, LSD is very difficult to produce because
of its highly regulated precursors. Only a few people in the world produce
LSD, and they probably sell it to gangs to distribute.) Individual growers and
patients aren't so bad, but for areas of the country where this is rare, gangs
probably supply most of the marijuana. Gangs/cartels are known for having
basically the opposite of the values of these "street kids." I wonder if these
two demographics often come into contact for business purposes, "Lock, Stock,
and Two Smoking Barrels"-style.

Does anyone have any better, more specific information about the distribution
chains for marijuana or LSD?

EDIT: clarifying first sentence

~~~
s_baby
Most American LSD is distributed through the "Rainbow Family" distribution
network. Basically the same people you see on the streets of San Francisco.
It's a stretch calling these people a gang. It has zero connection to drugs
like heroin, cocaine, and meth.

~~~
777466
and that is because there is no profit in LSD (I suppose related to it not
being addictive?)

In SF, $50 will get you an eighth of pot, whereas LSD is like $5/hit (so a
twenty is enough to meet God)

~~~
s_baby
A vile costs less than $1 per hit and a fraction of that price for someone "in
the family". You can only move so much though since it's not a habit.

Several factors favor a small source of distributors. Ergot is dangerous to
work with, it's a difficult synthesis, and the overhead costs of making 1,000
hits and 1,000,000,000 is essentially the same.

~~~
777466
Why use vials? Unpredictable dosage, charged by weight if arrested... (of
course, I'm not sure how much SFPD cares about hippie drugs)

Not to mention the guys selling it for $20/sheet every 4/20 on Hippie Hill --
there's your year's supply right there.

~~~
s_baby
Just an example. It's been a while since I've been involved in any scene.

------
ry0ohki
"Our initial hypothesis was that life on Haight Street would be a grim,
Dickensian hellhole. Instead, we discovered a world of misunderstood, modern-
day nomads, blithely toeing the line between poverty, drug dealing, and hippy
nirvana."

We had to interview homeless people in DC as part of a college project, and
found something similar. I think the common perception is that homeless people
are just people like you and I who hit hard times, but almost everyone we
talked to was homeless by choice (and some probably had mental illness). Talk
to homeless people sometime, it may change your ideas.

~~~
peterwwillis
This simplifies the general problem of homelessness, which in reality makes up
a large number of people in drastically different situations. Some are
families, some are mentally ill, some are sex offenders or felons, some are
career homeless, etc. DC's homeless are pretty tame compared to those you'd
encounter in Florida, for example.

The article was a neat little look into a single park's homeless culture, but
it can be really rough if you wander into the wrong park or alley. Or just
taking a bus.

------
ajju
Great post!

I lived right next to the park for the better part of a year. I feel like
there are two more aspects to the street kids lives that deserve more
attention:

(1) Their pets: Most of these kids have a dog (or sometimes a cat), love their
pets and for the most part seem to treat them well. One night, after finding a
dog with a collar roaming alone in the park, I helped her find a temporary
home. The next day I saw some really worried street kids posting hand written
signs with a photo of the dog and reunited them. It was a sight to behold.
Homeless with pets are controversial but at least amongst the street kids, the
pets seem to have a net positive effect on them.

(2) Mental illness: OP alluded to this, but mentally ill homeless who live in
the same area are a huge issue for people who associate them with the street
kids. There is no easy fix for this problem and I have always wondered what
the street kids think about the mentally ill amongst them and what should be
done to help them.

------
littletables
I became homeless at the cusp of 14, escaping from sleeping with mice on a
bare mattress from a Sunset District garage - where my crack-addicted mother
(she, a Stanford engineering graduate) put me. I lived on the streets of San
Francisco, almost exclusively the Haight until I was 17 1/2. The horrors of my
story paled in comparison to the kids I crewed up with in Upper/Lower Haight,
and there were a _lot_ of us.

There still are. For many years I have done active outreach work to the
homeless youth there as well as risk reduction community mediation meetings
between homeless kids, their outreach service workers, and local residents
(some of these meetings have taken place at The Booksmith).

I am currently very successful in the tech arena, despite never having
returned to school after having to find a place to live and food to eat when I
was halfway through ninth grade; I never graduated and have no formal
education. I am a very lucky exception.

Why do I tell you this? So you can begin to understand why I have to tell you
that if this article is claiming to be about life for, or about, homeless
youth in the Haight, the article is so inaccurate it ought to be considered
harmful.

This article is the biggest lie and mischaracterization of homeless youth in
the Haight I have ever read. I'm too astonished at the moment to be outraged.

------
nthitz
Went for a walk through this area about two weeks ago. As you near the park,
lot of dealers pop up. In the park, on every corner of the paths people
offered to sell me drugs. Marijuana, LSD, Mushrooms were all offered. I could
sense different groups competing for territory in the park. I felt
uncomfortable.

~~~
edmundhuber
If you live here, you have to harden yourself against constant harassment for
money and offers of drugs, and you have to get used to stepping around garbage
and shit in the street. As much as SF should strive to be tolerant, at a
certain point it must be recognized that if you don't want to be taken
advantage of, as I believe is the case here for "authentic" residents of
Haight-Ashbury, i.e. people who pay local taxes and own or rent and have what
I would call a more vested interest in the community improving, steps have to
be taken to curb the more destructive behaviors. The fact is, we already have
disincentives for littering, disturbing the peace, selling drugs, etc, but
they don't seem to be working. So I'm not sure what can be done.

~~~
wyclif
I'm from the East coast and I recently visited SF again after a long time
away. I was appalled by the amount of human feces in public. Street people
just pull down their pants and shit right on the sidewalk or on a doorstep.

But what's far more appalling is that straight people in SF put up with it as
part of the cost of doing business.

~~~
cpeterso
From the "only in SF" files:

"When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator ... they found so much
human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team."

[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-
down...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-down-BART-
escalators-3735981.php)

------
rza
_But in a city that lionizes entrepreneurs who sacrifice everything to create
the next big thing, there is something admirable about the street kids’ total
embrace of drugs, freedom, and a lifestyle that society scorns._

This. In an isolated society of highways and McMansions where it's taboo to
converse with random strangers, what the world needs now is not the next big
social iPhone app, but a stronger sense of community, which we could learn a
thing or two from these 'kids'.

------
acslater00
This story reminds me a lot of this old "Hipster Animals" gag.

<http://hipster-animals.tumblr.com/post/5609675345/raccoon>

------
leed25d
I would like to know what you can get in the Haight for $1500 / month. Not
much I'll bet.

~~~
rms
<http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/3610577943.html>

<http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/3601988013.html>

------
angersock
Anybody remember the article a few days ago with the author complaining about
the Google bus and the invasion of tech folks into the Bay Area and how they
weren't improving the community?

And how a lot of people were like "Hey, well, it's putting wealth into helping
San Francisco!".

Well, how's this fit into that calculus?

~~~
SilasX
Probably in the "pearls before swine" sense. Long-time natives just don't
appreciate how much the influx of tech folks is improving things, nor how few
cities would love to have such a "problem".

~~~
spiralpolitik
Thats because the long time natives don't view them as improvements. They view
them as outsiders coming in and disrupting their communities eventually
driving them (the natives) out.

The general consensus in most parts of the Bay Area is that people want things
to stay the same as it was the day they arrived.

~~~
SilasX
Yep, that's the San Francisco lefty for ya: "You're welcome to immigrate to
our country ... just not our city."

------
dasht
A lot of people read this and this kind of story and they want to talk about
the morality or value systems of these kids, themselves, and so forth.

I propose that there is a much more important reading:

Youth unemployment is extraordinarily high (effecting minorities even worse
than these mostly-white kids, of course). Youth incarceration rate /
engagement with the justice system is very high.

The numbers of people "dropping out" of legitimate society altogether look to
be high and growing.

People's personal feelings about all this aside, it pays to notice when
society starts to fray so badly as this.

------
jumby
Sounds like fun for about 1-2 weeks, and then it would be a sucky life. Gotta
have mental stimulation sometime.

~~~
michaelochurch
We're a biased set, in that most of us have, at least, the option for mentally
stimulating work. As fucked as the software industry is, it's better than most
other places.

Most of them are choosing one (purportedly, although I think I'm right that
neither of us has tried it) brain-dead lifestyle over another one.

That's why I get irked when people talk about housewives becoming "braindead"
from being outside of the economy. What makes the typical mind-numbing office
life superior to a (supposedly) mind-numbing domestic existence?

~~~
learc83
>That's why I get irked when people talk about housewives becoming "braindead"
from being outside of the economy.

Every housewife I know has some kind of mentally stimulating hobby, and most
of them make some amount of income from it (photography, crafts etc...). In
fact most of them shouldn't really be called "housewives" any more than male
remote programmers should be called "househusbands".

~~~
jquery
Let's get real, most homemakers are simply indulging their bourgeois
fantasies. Not that I blame them, I'd do the same thing if I thought I could
get away with it, but I'd probably get served divorce papers.

~~~
hnal943
...or they are providing their own childcare and managing their household.

~~~
malandrew
However, they don't necessarily need to be that competent to provide their own
childcare. It's not like the kid is going to fire the parent is the parenting
isn't above average. A stay at home parent caring for kids is as likely to
play on reddit while the kid watches tv as interacting with the kid all the
time and teaching them information, good values and good habits.

~~~
hnal943
Your comment ignores my original point which is that homemakers have economic
value, but it's still worthy of a response.

Obviously children are not in control of who takes care of them, but that
would be true whether the parents worked or not; parents decide how their
children will be cared for in any case. Also, I'm not sure if you've ever
tried to browse reddit and watch a toddler at the same time, but I can say
from experience it's not as easy as you might imagine. Children, especially
when they are younger than school-age, demand a lot of attention just to keep
them safe and healthy let alone educated and civilized.

------
KillerDIller88
I was one of those kids. And I can tell you that the article is pretty
accurate. I am female, small and skinny. At the time, I was 19 years old and I
had given up a one-way ticket to Hawaii, where I was going to transfer to
another Dave and Buster's. I decided that even in paradise, I didn't want to
work for those assholes anymore. So I packed up about 1/10 of my belongings
(what I considered valuable: my violin, some clothes and a ton of beads). When
I got to SF, I instantly made friends. I was drawn to the ones who didn't like
begging- the buskers and merchants. I slept in the park every night for
months. I wandered Haight & Ashbury- at night. Yes, I got robbed by the
Fillmore Kids once, but I deserved it for selling on their turf. I never got
in any fights, nor did any of the kids I was hanging with. I never even had
anything stolen (not that I had anything to steal). The whole point is to be
totally detached from society. Looking back, I think it should have been
scary, but it wasn't. It was fun. I got to play my violin all day and sing
Janice Joplin to the gypsies at night by campfire on Ocean Beach. I met some
fascinating characters. One kid had joined a cult. When they refused to let
him play jazz piano, he decided that working in a vegan-bakery-sweat-shop run
by jesus freaks wasn't for him. He collected rocks and must have been really
fucking strong because he had the heaviest pack I have ever held. At least he
could be sure that no one would steal that thing! There were a lot of kids
with psychosis there, too. One kid wrote poetry all day and occasionally sang
to himself. When I asked him what he was saying, he'd say, "a song I wrote for
you." Though the sentiment was sweet, he didn't write it. It was 'Tangled Up
in Blue' by Bob Dylan. It was ALWAYS 'Tangled Up in Blue'. I thought the
comment about "respecting the spot," was interesting, too. We really do that.
No one is greedy. If we feel we've made enough cash for beer or cigarettes, we
leave. I've even had other kids tell me about a good busking stop they had
just left vacant. "Warmed it up for ya." It's easy to see why this lifestyle
is so appealing. However, the same cannot be said of why it's a lot less
dangerous than most would think. But I lived it and I can tell you, I never
felt unsafe in the HAIGHT (I emphasize Haight because I did venture to a soup
kitchen near Polk and Geary and that was fucking terrifying). Despite any
negative feelings some of the gypsies might have toward the cops, the police
generally go easy on the stray kids because they know they keep the real crime
out of the tourist area. In the end, I got bored of that life and moved to
Austin to pursue music. I'm still a gypsy at heart, but I also care a lot
about the real world. These kids don't have any opinions on real events and
feel no sense of loyalty to society. They're not dangerous, they're just just
freeloaders. Plain and simple.

------
rasengan0
I too enjoyed the article having volunteered at HAFMC and seeing so many on
need. That was decades ago, but I've often wondered when the wandering quest
winds down, what became of their experience? The article hints at the Elders
but I suspect that is the minority. Would be interesting to see a Up series a
la Micheal Apted

------
danielpal
Thanks Rohin! Your blog is one of my favorite things to read. Quite a change
from the normal hacker news articles.

------
unomateo
Wondering many make the move from GG park to Market Street... Where the
homeless are a whole different breed.

~~~
sunyata
Hard drugs, since they can be closer to the tenderloin and mission most
likely.

Its sad because peace, love & family is not the way things are handled down
there and a lot of them dont make it very long once they graduate.

------
pm90
I can't see a community like this surviving if a lot more people join in. The
article describes someone refraining from 'panhandling excessively', but if
you have more people, there will always be those who think less for the
benefit of others

------
raintrees
"and have limited options when they get too old for the lifestyle"

That's what would sour me. Guess I am showing my age... I like hot showers,
clean clothes, and warm beds too much.

------
greggman
Slightly related is this documentary, Skid Row
(<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795381/>), in which a guy goes and lives in
Skid Row in Los Angeles for 9 days. It's free to watch on hulu and probably
other video sites.

------
spiritplumber
I picked two up (well they're not kids, they're in their late 20s) and they've
been working with me ever since. Can't wait until they move out, but at least
they learned some electronics!

~~~
lilsunnybee
You sound pretty awesome. Thanks for reaching out.

------
nollidge
OFF-TOPIC: is there a good reason the sidebar repositions itself on every
windows.scroll instead of just setting position:fixed in the CSS? It's jittery
and distracting when scrolling.

------
return0
It was a little weird that the author felt they had to give the definition of
'panhandling'.

------
KMinshew
This is actually pretty fascinating - I would have never thought to ask.
Thanks!

------
knowaveragejoe
> In many ways, the street kids seemed to be having a lot more fun than us.

This is key.

------
michaelochurch
Does anyone else find this really sad? It's not abject poverty, but it's a
loss of talent to the world, and I'm old and honest enough to know that it's
the world's fault.

I liked one of the signs. "You don't have to fuck people over to survive."
That's what our positive-sum technocracy is _supposed_ to represent: a world
in which you can focus on getting work done and making society better. That's
what it actually _is_ if you have a degree of freedom, autonomy, and comfort
that is (alas) very rare. Yet most of these "street kids" face a world of
soulless, zero-sum, corporate status-grubbing where they _do_ have to make
that choice, and they're making the less approved but perhaps morally nicer
one.

~~~
jumby
s/talent/a worker bee/

it's not the world's fault there exists free-will.

~~~
eli_awry
There's something in between wasting talent and becoming a worker bee. I was
part of a similar community and found it disenchanting because I wanted to
make new things. So I left, and now I make a lot of awesome things, and I'm
much happier. I can make contributions and put them on the internet to impact
people far and wide. These kids create strong, loving communities and that's
as much or more than most people contribute to the world, but I personally
felt like I was wasting my particular talents. So I left, But it wasn't to
become a worker bee. It was to achieve self-actualization on my own terms,
which is the same thing these kids are doing for themselves.

The perception that embarking on a career that you think will make the world a
better place is selling out or becoming a drone is really harmful. Being a
professional member of a hippy/punk community or an avowed member of the
CrimethInc Ex-Worker's Collective or a Slingshot producer or a freegan is a
valid choice, but it is hardly more pure than anything else.

