"I Am" Mark

by Mission Resistors

It came without warning!

I was going to be homeless with nowhere to sleep but the unpreditible streets of San Francisco, filled with drug addicts, mentally ill patients turned away from treatment centers, and roving bands of gangsters vying for turf space.

There had been a full-blown shoot out in front of Ella Hill the previous Fall, and a murder inside the shelter itself a couple months earlier, a man shot during an afterschool basketball game in front of his young daughter.

Ella Hill Hutch, the shelter I had stayed at for the last 1,000 days
was being shut down, the staff member at the front door informed me
as I entered that cool night last Spring.

“Can you believe that?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

I could hear the fear in his voice and realized that it not only meant that we would be losing our place to sleep, but he would be losing his job as well.

“We have a petition over there on the table you can sign if you want to try to keep the place open,” he said.