Homeless People

Here are photos I took of different homeless people living on the streets of San Francisco.

These pictures are probably my favorites of all the ones I took during my short vacation. These people are so often misunderstood, treated terribly, and most of the time completely shunned by society. This weekend I felt absolutely compelled to try to make a difference. I know I can’t help everybody and I know a lot of these people use money given to them for drugs, alcohol, or on other things. But a lot of them really need money, just to survive. So I went to a bank to get $100 one-dollar bills and I went along the streets of San Francisco with my camera in hand, passing out $1 bills to every homeless person that would let me take their picture. In some cases, I passed out $5 for five photos if I thought they would make an interesting shot! They were very happy to receive the money and some of them wanted me to take lots of photos and posed like exhibitionists because people rarely talk to them. Many of them were very friendly and were such amazing people, my heart went out to them. When my dollar bills ran out, I started passing out water.

Sometimes I felt that the person was seriously drugged up and money wasn’t the best thing to give them, so I bought 12-water bottles and started passing them out to the homeless people lined against the wall. It was kind of hard to take photos while juggling 12 water bottles in my arms, so I didn’t take photos then. But they sure were appreciative and when I left, they all waved and smiled at me which made me feel like I did something good. I sure wish I could have done more, especially after watching so many of them put their heads inside trash cans trying to find a bottle with drink still in it.