Who knew a tiny virus could help provoke an overhaul of a city’s homeless policy? Yet that’s what happened last year in San Diego.

At first, doctors in the city were seeing a trickle of patients with seemingly minor complaints: abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue. But other symptoms—jaundiced eyes, sickly yellow skin, dark urine—suggested something more serious, something highly contagious.

I once met a man who worked as our nation’s homelessness czar. His name is Phil Mangano and he’s quite the character, with his dark sweeping eyebrows, piercing eyes, and passionate speech. We sat for three hours at a café over milky coffee and chocolate chip cookies discussing homelessness—the challenges, the tragedies, and possible solutions. 

I remember when I was a 9-year-old pastor/missionary’s kid growing up in Singapore, there was a man who always loitered around our church after Sunday service. My father’s church shared the same building with another church, and that man was a regular attender of that church’s morning service.

Two decades ago, Kevin Sorbo was busy slaying dragons. As the star of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Sorbo pranced around in 12-pound, glute-hugging leather pants and a chamois shirt that revealed sculpted pectorals. The popular Greek mythology TV series ran for six seasons from 1995 to 1999 and gained a cult following around the world.

Angie Mercer wondered if she was the only person freaking out in the hospital room. The others—an international student from China, his pregnant wife, and his mother—wore stoic expressions. The mother-to-be was deep in labor, yet the doctor had not arrived, and the understaffed nurses were busy elsewhere.

When a stranger says hi to you in Los Angeles, it’s safe to assume he’s either a homeless guy hustling for change, or he’s someone fresh out of the Midwest who hasn’t yet learned proper LA manners. But at a Californian-Italian bar in Santa Monica recently, strangers were greeting one another like long-lost friends. They smiled. They introduced themselves. They shook hands and hugged. And then they sat shoulder-to-shoulder, broke bread over spaghetti and beer-battered mushrooms, and castigated California liberals.

Patience Merchant’s 6-year-old son Kwama and 3-year-old daughter Aliyah don’t remember ever having a stable home. When Kwama was 3 months old, Merchant left his father over what she says was domestic abuse. She and her children have been shuffling in and out of emergency shelters ever since.