Cristina: We went for a drive through the Redwoods. It looked like the pictures in the textbooks. Everything’s covered in green moss and it’s so green and vibrant.

Ben: Yeah, vibrant is a good word for San Francisco.

Cristina: Here, unlike Alabama, we meet a lot of people all day, everyday.

Ben: Which is fun.

Cristina: But being an unmedicated, introverted person, with extreme social anxiety, it can be hard at times. I’m also a little too trusting at times. After four months, it’s as if we just stepped off the bus, kinda like tourists. We’ve been taken advantage of a few times.

Ben: And we’ve learned the hard way about trusting people. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, until proven otherwise, but we’ve had to become a little more jaded.

Cristina: Since we’re homeless right now, which is temporary, we’re trying to take advantage of what the city has to offer. We stay in a hotel a few nights a week and stay in a shelter the rest of the days. We have to supplement our money because we’re living off savings and Ben’s inheritance. We’re doing better here than we were before. The best idea would be to find a room with somebody but that’s difficult with strangers, it’s always a risk, especially being a couple. It’s difficult to shower, charge your phone, go to the bathroom, when you don’t have a house. It’s impossible to pee in this town!

Ben: The way the housing works you have to be a productive member of society, and have a job to contribute; you have to have at least stability, right? You can’t get affordable housing unless you go through Section 8 and essentially go on disability. But once you get on disability and get a house, you can’t work, so you are left sitting in your new house, which is affordable, but you have nothing to do. Then you get bored, and with boredom, addiction comes along. It’s a vicious cycle. I think San Francisco does a great job than any other city that I can think of, but I think there is definitely something that’s fundamentally wrong with the system. But I’d rather be homeless out here than back home.