“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
--Robert Frost, “The Death of the Hired Man”

On my bike ride early this morning through the center of the city, I was reminded once again that many of our people are not enjoying the good life that America is thought by the rest of the world to provide for her citizens. Before the tourist buses begin their trips around Balboa Park, more than a dozen men and women were being asked to gather their belongings for another day of wandering. Three people were still asleep on the steps of the Presbyterian Church. At least a dozen homeless persons wandered through the beautiful little park across from the U.S. Grant Hotel.

The lady in my photograph had made the bus stop at Broadway and Fourth her place...until someone comes along to explain that she cannot stay there.

For statistical purposes San Diego’s homeless population is divided into two groups: urban homeless persons and homeless farm workers and day laborers. According to a report of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness in San Diego there are presently around 10,000 homeless persons in the city. That doesn’t take into account the homeless not seeking assistance. According to the Task Force’s report, “There are estimated to be 4,840 single adults, including over 1400 single adult women, in the urban homeless population. Family members make up 32 percent (2,372) of the urban homeless population. Single women head the majority of homeless families. However, in recent years, increasing numbers of single male parents with chidren have become homeless.”

At the end of the day, before they go off into a canyon or to a place under a bridge to sleep, many of the rural homeless will undoubtedly work for minimum wage to pick the food crops most of us will enjoy in our comfortable homes tomorrow.