Righteous Dopefiend

Neoliberal policies profoundly affected Edgewater homeless people during their lifetime, particularly policies that relied more on free market forces than regulation, leading to the devastating wealth disparities that were already becoming evident at the time of this book’s publication.

During the 1970s and 80s, Nixon and Reagan’s shift towards neoliberalism meant globalization—the subsequent movement of jobs overseas (where corporations could pay less for labor and could legally exploit workers to a greater degree than in the US) led to a generation of manual workers having their jobs becomes obsolete. Due to the skyrocketing rent as San Francisco became more and more gentrified, many of these manual laborers lost stable housing as they lost their jobs.

These industrial workers were the parents of people living in the Edgewater homeless community; their children now cycle in and out of marginalized temporary labor. The jobs that the Edgewater homeless folks work in the run-down, industrial district reflect the gray areas of patron-client relations in the legal economy. The few business owners that stay afloat in the area give the homeless odd jobs, often paying them significantly less than they would a regular worker or illegal immigrant workers, but also having to put up with the erratic behavior of workers who are homeless and addicted to drugs.