Heartbreaking Photos and Tragic Tales of San Francisco's Homeless

Psychiatrist Robert Okin spent years getting to know the city's street people. Now he's sharing their stories.

Mary "told me she had once been very beautiful, but that was a long time ago." Photographs by Robert Okin

—By Gabrielle Canon

| Tue Feb. 17, 2015

Jeff rarely smiles. After 10 years sleeping on sidewalks in San Francisco, stealing to survive and score his next heroin fix, an infection robbed him of most of his teeth. "If you have a big nose, well, no one can blame you," he says. "It's just the way you were born. But if you have no teeth, it's proof that you've fucked up real bad—that you must be nothing but a fuckup."

Heartbreaking Photos and Tragic Tales of San Francisco's Homeless by Thavam Ratna