Homeless in San Fran

I spent this past weekend in San Francisco, a lovely town on the Bay. However, the majority of the city's landscape is marred by the overwhelming homeless population.

My hotel was located right on Union Square, a very chic area right above the Financial District (I think). Full of stores like Sephora, Nordstroms, Bang and Olafsen, the area just reeks of money and tourism. However, if you walk two blocks down to Market and just one block to the right, you are confronted by what seemed to be a homeless convention. Everywhere I looked there were people with all their earthly belongings in a tattered duffel bag or a few paltry plastic shopping bags. What struck me first, though, was that they were mostly young kids you'd expect to see on any college campus -- of course a bit better groomed.

Everyone keeps telling me that SF is where all the angry runaways go since the weather is so good and it still has that hippie vibe from the 60's. But does anyone seem to care that all these kids are just rotting on the streets? I'm not saying I have an answer, let alone the answer, but three days later and I'm still just as bothered by the whole thing.

Of course the rest of my trip was great, homeless people aside. Saw "The Lion King" which was visually the most stunning musical I've ever seen. Julie Taymor is a goddess and if a touring company is that good, I can only imagine how great the original on Broadway was.