I knew that I would encounter homelessness when I came to Berkeley. I was expecting it, because just about everybody I knew had something to say about the rumors they'd heard filter over from the West Coast. Coming from New York, however, I figured I'd seen it all, and would be in control over whatever I would be up against. Reality quickly hit me, though, as I began to familiarize myself with Berkeley and its …showed first 75 words of 2011 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2011 total…at one point, only one of them gave a panhandler any money, and that represents a very clear pattern. Sadly, that pattern, without a significant effort on the part of local and national government, won't change anytime soon. We may never cure the problems faced by the homeless and we may never be able to retrain our society to be more tolerant, but we can at least, hopefully, begin to take steps to that end.