A Yearlong Trip Down Crack Street

By Jay Allen Sanford

San Diego Reader
November 1, 2007

I was homeless exactly one year, from March 2001 to March 2002. I'd known it was coming, and I even sort of welcomed the impending challenge(s), but I had no idea how long it would last, and how ill-prepared I was.

It had taken most of the previous year to chart my descent. I started New Year's Day 2000 debt free, owner of a thriving publishing company (Re-Visionary Press), in demand as a comic book creator, and with plenty of writing and art gigs from the Reader and elsewhere. My comic strip "Overheard in San Diego" had run weekly for around four years, I was renting a nice La Mesa house, driving a Le Baron convertible, and even found time for the occasional date. Sure, I was about to turn 40, and I'd been working six to seven days a week nonstop for nearly 20 years, but I enjoyed what I was doing and didn't really feel like I was missing out on anything. Read the whole story here......