Homelessness and Empathy
Sep 6, 2026
The 3rd Street Drawbridge allows Giants fans to access Oracle Park from the swaths of parking lots across McCovey Cove. Before every home game, this area becomes host to a large, impromptu party that slowly migrates from raucous tailgates on Pier 48, across the bridge, and into the stadium. For a sports fan, but really for anyone with a heart, it's a jubilant display of community and humanity. What 7-year-old Sean remembered most, however, was the juxtaposition of this scene against scores of homeless people tucked behind dumpsters, lining the edge of the walkway, or nestled into the corners of the bridge. They held pieces of cardboard, with messages that were some permutation of "HOMELESS AND HUNGRY. ANYTHING HELPS. GOD BLESS."
As a child, I didn't know what to make of this scene. With the vulnerable underbelly of society staring us in the face, it seemed each passing fan must confront the uncomfortable dilemma of whether or not to donate money. As we sauntered past eating our chili dogs, my conservative father taught me never to give to these people flanking our red carpet. "They are lazy leeches who refuse to get a job, and the more you give to them, the more they are encouraged to freeload even further," he would often tell me. Though my concept of morality was still nascent and heavily influenced by the constant drone of Tucker Carlson on the TV every night, I had a vague sense this wasn't right. It seemed unfathomable that I could ever end up in their position, so what had these people encountered or done to end up here? I was wholly unaware of my privilege.
As I grew up and solidified into progressive views, I instinctively bristled even further at my father's line of reasoning, but I still didn't know exactly why. Most discourse shared my same vague sense of empathy for their situation—they had no financial security, they had a genetic predisposition to addiction, they grew up in an abusive household, etc.— but still largely treated it as an emotionless thought experiment to be solved, almost like the platitude of starving children in Africa. We care about starving children in Africa, because of course we care about starving children, but we knew that would never happen to us. Does the average progressive-leaning person in San Francisco really think they are not in danger of becoming homeless?
Prior to disability, I now realize I subconsciously placed a level of separation between myself and homeless people. Though I was well aware of the flimsiness around concepts like picking yourself up by the bootstraps, the American dream, or the idea that success is even mostly a meritocracy, I still bought into these concepts to give order to a chaotic world. I believed deeply in my ability to work hard, and that most of what I had accomplished was a result of this hard work. In turn, I felt I could always rely on these metaphorical bootstraps to insulate myself from what many deem as rock bottom in modern society: homelessness. I never imagined a world where I would lose these bootstraps.
In my writing and casual conversation, I've largely avoided talking about the first year of my injury, but to be honest, I was suicidal and it was all a blur. I remember medical appointments and occasionally seeing friends, but mostly I remember my body falling apart as doctors dismissed my problems as psychosomatic. While losing my health came first, the other societal guardrails I had always relied on, the same ones that insulated me from homeless, slowly fell away too: I had to drop out of college, my large network of friends fell apart, my industry connections from internships became nonexistent, my entire world of climbing/running/mountaineering that I relied upon for so much of my happiness became inaccessible, and my ability to be an active participant in society was greatly reduced. I had to watch from the sidelines as my peers moved forward largely unburdened by these problems.
As it became clear I was significantly disabled and not just temporarily injured, there was an upending of the fragile order I had placed on the world. I saw that no matter how hard I decided to work, I had lost my independence. There was no grit, determination, or hard work to fall back on—I was incredibly vulnerable. Through finally receiving some medical diagnoses, more therapy than I'd like to admit, but mostly just time, I finally came out the other side of this psilocybin-less ego death with an odd sense of euphoria, and a very different perspective on homelessness.
Now thinking back on my Father's childhood axiom, I soon realized there were no intrinsic qualities separating myself from the "lazy leeches" he had taught me so much about. Without my parent's safety net, I could be lining the 3rd Street Drawbridge in a hard neck collar begging for money all the same. I could no longer rationalize the worst case scenario by saying "if all else fails, I will work 3 jobs, sleep in my car, and grind it out until I can get back on my feet." After a couple days of that, I would end up in the hospital, hopefully without severe neurological damage, and then what? I would be released into the streets to do it all over again. My bootstraps were gone, and whatever deep part of my ego I thought was protecting me from homelessness was just that: my ego.
I'm writing this at the risk of sounding like an out-of-touch, privileged white dude both to document my own journey of unraveling this part of my privilege, but also because I think even the most progressive among us hold onto some of these cultural myths. Much like atheists may sneer at the fervent churchgoer for needing to seek security in the comforting but dubious story of the bible, even those who take pride in being secular and rational still tell themselves distortedly-positive stories about why their life has panned out the way it has. And when we are faced with a person whose life goes against this fragile narrative, we alter our stories. We victim-blame and hero-worship because we desperately want the safety of hard work being rewarded and laziness punished.
We churn out books about successful people and all their admirable habits, hoping to apply them to reach our own goals. We mythologize the rags-to-riches martyr as proof that we can overcome any situation. We subliminally signal to those with chronic illnesses that they have failed in some critical area of self-care that we would never let happen (ask me how I know about this one!). We find a fault in a homeless person before we ever find a fault in ourselves. In our desperate quest to make these stories a reality, however, we fail to see homeless people are not exceptions to the rule, but part of the same story we are.
We may acknowledge their pain, donate some money, and maybe even volunteer briefly for a local advocacy organization, but then we get back into the cultural race and cast aside homeless people as others. You probably have a similar work ethic, similar IQ, and similar abilities to a homeless person, but by some stroke of luck, you just had some guardrail (financial stability, a supportive family, a clean bill of health, a large network of friends, etc.) keeping you on track whenever you threatened to veer off course. Homeless people are not a separate population that needs help or an abstract problem that needs solving, they are you, me, and the person down the street.
57% of America is living paycheck to paycheck: all it takes is one major car accident, one death of a spouse, one layoff where nobody will hire you, or one doctor to get you hooked on opioids to send you off the cliff and into the fringes of society. If you don't think these things can happen to you, think again. As Warriors head coach Steve Kerr put it when his father was murdered by terrorists in Lebanon when Steve was 18: "Before my father was killed, my life was impenetrable. Bad things happened to other people." This is not to say your life is predetermined, but there is nothing fundamentally different between you and the victims of tragedies. No matter how insulated you think you are, you're a few unlucky dice rolls from a life-altering tragedy sending you to sleep outside. More privilege buys you more dice rolls, but it's all chance anyway.
To be clear, homelessness isn't just an isolated label we apply to someone or a convenient mirror through which we can analyze our own morality, but something that is very real: sleeping outside without any stability is dangerous and traumatizing, often leading to abuse, starvation, mental health issues, or death. Ultimately, the wellbeing of homeless people matters far more than how their existence makes housed people feel. However, homelessness is also fundamentally an intersectional systemic issue that must be solved by collective action. Since we ostensibly vote for politicians based on morals, the attitudes of housed people can drive real, sweeping changes.
I'm not claiming, however, to have a novel solution to America's homelessness crisis. People far smarter than myself from all sides of the political spectrum have tried and failed to fix the issue. If someone were to come up with a grand solution, it sure wouldn't be me. This is because, in my opinion, homelessness is not an isolated problem, but the ugly end result of all of society's failings. Progressive policies like harm reduction are far closer to a solution than using the National Guard to evict homeless people from D.C, but I think we have to acknowledge that, so far, liberal areas have failed to solve the homelessness crisis all the same. There is much work to be done, but with more radical empathy, my hope is that novel solutions become possible.
I also do not want to downplay the genuine harm that homeless people can inflict on others. My aunt is a homeless meth addict on Skid Row, and I've watched her suck every last drop of cash out of my poor 89-year-old grandmother who is desperate to save her daughter. None of this essay should be read as a justification for the terrible things that people will do when they have lost everything, but instead as a recognition of how thin the margins are. It's easy to think you wouldn't do the same when your back isn't against the wall.
Those that have grown up with fewer of these societal guardrails, or who have already encountered events that sent them careening right off the societal cliff, will probably be rolling their eyes at this article. And I can't blame them. I didn't know what I didn't know then, and I don't know what I don't know now, but I'm trying to learn. Ultimately, though, there is a fundamental difference between intellectually knowing something and viscerally feeling it. Much of the morality discussed in this piece is something that I have believed intellectually for much of my life, but it feels very different to resonate with it on such a deep level. At least from my conversations with others since I became disabled, many otherwise progressive people still subconsciously cling to these cultural stories about a meritocracy holding their lives together, even if they intellectually understand what a crapshoot homelessness and success are.
While this way of viewing homelessness hopefully leads to a more genuine form of empathy, it's also not enough to pat yourself on the back then idly revel in some twisted moral superiority that seems all too common among liberal people. Empathy is wasted if it does not beget real change. The solution may not be obvious, but we sure as hell aren't going to get any closer if we treat our fellow human beings like a math equation.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
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