The evolution of San Diego's approach to homelessness

The city's finally doing something to get folks off the street. Will it last?

Stacy Collinsworth was born in Ohio, drifted to Florida and then west to California. Wherever he stopped, he caused trouble.

 

“The guy you see in the middle of the street using a halfgallon bottle as a pillow?” he said. “That would be me.”

Collinsworth landed in San Diego a chronic alcoholic, blind in one eye and homeless. In 2010, he took 43 ambulance rides, was arrested four times, spent 10 days in jail, three days in the hospital and three days in the county’s psychiatric ward. In all, he racked up $103,567 in expenses.

In the first few months of 2011, there were two ambulance rides, three ER visits, one arrest and four days in jail.....read more