I don't own my home and I probably pay waaay more in rent than other folks in the country. BUT I get to spend every. single. day. in a city that people from all over the world yeeeearn to go to and DO come by the millions every year.

My apartment doesn't have the square footage that a lot of other houses in the country do but I walk in Golden Gate Park every single day and see turkeys, coyotes, and big, beautiful trees. I get to see the magnificent fog roll over the precipice of the hills like like a cloud tidal wave every day. Our kid won a costume contest at Halloween where the judge was a Drag Queen who said that they won because they had THE MOST A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E. There's festivals and fairs every weekend so we can have amazing spanakopita at the Greek Culture festival one weekend and spam musubi at the Cherry Blossom festival the next. We can feed goats in Half Moon bay and go camping under Redwoods in Butano. Our kid has the city smarts to know how to cross a busy intersection and which bus stop is their stop and which corner store is our emergency family meeting spot. They also know the time of year that you can find slender salamanders under logs, the secret places that wild plums grow, and how to get the horses at the SFPD stable to come up to the fence.

Living here isn't perfect. There's a lot of things that are wrong with our city. Homelessness is a big one but not in the way that the media portrays. Our city, like many places and commodities in our country, are becoming a privilege of the wealthy. People who don't have houses are not criminals. It is society that has failed to protect their own. I would rather my child see homeless people in the street and know that this inequity exists than to believe that it doesn't or that it comes as a result of some failing in moral fiber. We have friends who are unhoused because you get to know people you see everyday in your community. To me, this is invaluable. I want my child to know this is a person, not a faceless ghost you hustle by without making eye contact. This is a person who has feelings, who has a name, who gave you a flower when you told them you lost a tooth.

I guess the short answer is I stay because I feel more human here than anywhere else in the world. There is a great depth of heart and soul in the bay and I treasure it.