OPINION: Homeless on the Bay, and What Jackson Can Learn

By: Selika Maria Sweet, M.D.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I wandered San Francisco with no map and no plan, walking and then running, as if motion itself could keep me from dissolving into the city by the bay. I climbed one hill and raced down another. San Francisco is often described as seven miles by seven miles, shaped by seven defining hills, and I tried, foolishly, to take it all in within a single day. The air hovered around fifty degrees. I pulled my gray hoodie tight, half hidden from the world.

After twelve hours, exhaustion won. I collapsed near a ground-level Bay Area Rapid Transit station. The fare was five dollars.

“How long can I stay on BART?” I asked the driver.

“As long as you want,” he said.

I still do not understand how the fare system works, but I took him at his word. Inside the train, I sat across from a man with an easy smile who reminded me of relatives back home. Around us were faces from everywhere, Asian, White, Hispanic, a moving cross-section of the world.

“Hey, cuz, where is Mission Street?” I asked.

“Oh, you are looking for the food stamp office,” he said.

“No,” I replied quickly. “I am meeting my family. I am just new here.”

He studied me for a moment, then spoke softly. “You do not have to be embarrassed. I am homeless too. Came here from Florida. Where are you from?”

“Mississippi,” I said. “But I am not homeless.”

He nodded. “Stay here long enough, and you will be. This is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Folks think you are crazy or on drugs when you live on the street. I am just broke. But here, you can ride the train, get food stamps, find shelters, better than most places.”

His words stayed with me long after the doors closed.

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I thought about the city’s costs, four-hundred-dollar hotel rooms and four-thousand-dollar rents, and how fragile stability really is. One missed paycheck. One illness. One layoff. The distance between housed and homeless suddenly felt terrifyingly thin.

San Francisco is celebrated for its wealth and innovation, yet homelessness is visible and unavoidable. Still, even amid staggering inequality, there are systems that soften the fall: reliable public transit, shelters, social services, and coordinated outreach designed to keep people alive. San Francisco now spends more than one billion dollars a year on homelessness services, more than any city in the nation, a sign not of success but of sustained public acknowledgment that the problem is structural, not personal.

Jackson, Mississippi, tells a different story.

In Jackson, homelessness is quieter, but harsher. There are fewer shelters, fewer social services, and limited public transportation. Encampments form in abandoned lots, under bridges, or near wooded areas where people are unseen, exposed, and unsafe.

Yet Jackson also holds something powerful: deep community ties, faith institutions, universities, medical centers, and a long tradition of resilience.

The city is bordered by the Pearl River, an undeveloped stretch of wilderness with marshes, wildlife, and little public transport. Instead of being ignored or feared, the Pearl could become part of the solution. A carefully planned river corridor could include walking paths, workforce training sites, transitional housing nearby, and environmental restoration jobs that employ unhoused residents while protecting the ecosystem. Thoughtful development could create dignity, purpose, and connection without destroying what makes the river sacred.

What if Jackson reimagined how it cares for its most vulnerable residents?

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What if people experiencing homelessness could ride JATRAN buses for free, not as charity, but as a lifeline to shelters, clinics, food banks, job interviews, and warming centers?

What if churches and civic groups partnered with the city to create safe, monitored encampments with access to bathrooms, water, healthcare outreach, and case management?

What if hospitals and clinics treated housing instability as a public health issue, recognizing that prevention is cheaper and more humane than emergency care?

Cities reveal their values not in their skylines, but in how they treat people with nowhere to go.

After an hour, I stepped off the train and walked again, pulled toward the Golden Gate Bridge glowing against the gray sky. Eventually, I found my family waiting.

They asked, “Where have you been?” 

“Discovering this seven-by-seven city and looking at the seven hills,” I said.

And I thought, if I am ever homeless, I hope it will be in a city that refuses to look away, that understands how easily anyone can fall, and that chooses to build systems that catch people before they disappear.