Alvie Lindsay

Two important revelations emerge from The Sacramento Bee’s informal survey of community attitudes toward homelessness. One, more than half of those who answered the survey believe that homelessness is the single most significant local issue confronting Sacramento. Two, the respondents were almost evenly split on why most people become homeless.

Our community’s most intractable problem is also painfully its most visible. The first-world shame that is homelessness is impossible to miss. Drive around Sacramento any time, any day and one will see any — and more likely all — of the following: An elderly man curled up on the sidewalk, trying to sleep and seemingly dead to all that is around him.

I returned to once again make Sacramento my home almost exactly one year ago. I settled into a cute, smaller home in West Tahoe Park, just east of Stockton Boulevard and south of Broadway. I like it here. I like the neighborhood. I like Sacramento. I like the Central Valley. It is, after all, my home. I grew up in Manteca, went to college in Fresno and have worked and lived up and down the valley – Manteca, Clovis, Madera, Fresno, Turlock, Modesto, Salida, Sacramento.