Two weeks later, November 3, 2005, recalling their protest, I walked to the Presidio's Inspiration Point lookout over San Francisco Bay. Treasure island floated in a cobalt blue mist, Berkeley and Oakland in purple, and Alcatraz in pale yellow. Between whisps of clouds, tinged pink from the setting sun, a silver fingernail of a moon hung in a blue-gray evening sky.

At almost-dark, some mighty hand flipped a switch lighting the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts from inside like a big half peach. Sparkles of light studded The City and the East Bay shore. I thought how the money spent on the incredible power in those lights could, in this single instant, house for a year every homeless person who slept on streets or in shelters tonight.

I imagined a 15-year-old boy sitting alone in a room, his dark head bent over his book studying.for tomorrow's classes at SOTA, San Francisco's School of the Arts. Because of his talent, he and his mother had hopes for his future in art or theater. He auditioned and was accepted into this four-year unified school district's distinguished high school visual arts program. Recently, a congenital eye problem, exacerbated by his sudden teenage growth spurt and the stress of moving around, threw his artistic future into question. He is now legally blind in one eye.

When he was younger, he and his mother, Maxine Pauson, a disabled domestic violence survivor, roomed with other people. As he got older, that became increasingly difficult. He needed his own room and his own space. Yet, he is forced to share shelter with his mother, confined to the room together even when both are sick. Ironically, permanent housing rules require a teenager and parent have separate rooms.

His mother's congenital disc herniation left her in pain. She had to take anti-inflammatory pills and lie down during the day. Because she could not sit for long periods, she could not work. Her disability entitlement was so low they didn't have enough to rent their own place. Staying with others, they fell into the legal definition of "homeless."

Seven years ago, when her son was eight, Maxine put them on every subsidized Section 8 and public housing waiting list she could find in every county surrounding San Francisco, plus many further away --- even San Diego. They got no offers at all.

I pictured him studying tonight in a small shelter room in a former Catholic convent, the St. Joseph Family Center South of Market at 10th and Howard. For a year and a half they lived in five different shelters, waiting six months to be placed in the first one in Petaluma.

He loved his school, He took the long bus ride each day to continue to go there. It seemed ridiculous to Maxine that the McKinney act paid his fare back and forth when the money would be better spent on affordable housing.

Maxine expressed her feeling that the system is broken when priorities are so off balance.

She cited two factors creating this situation:

First was Reagan's 1980's political spin on poverty mothers as "welfare queens" and an attitude that placed less importance on stay-at-home women whose job is running a household and raising children. Though requiring massive skill sets, this is not seen as acceptable "work."

Mothers, especially poor ones, are subjected to a shame-blame game. People do not seem to recognize that children, secondarily, are the actual victims of this attitudinal and institutional child abuse.

Second, entitlement programs like food stamps and section 8 housing were closed out one by one to pay for the Iraq war. Maxine asserted that, when one fights to get out of poverty, there is less and less to work with.

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