Award-winning reporter Kevin Fagan is one of San Francisco’s great treasures. In his much acclaimed new book, The Lost and Found, Fagan tells his his two-decade experience reporting about homelessness in San Francisco. He shares the stories of Tyson and Rita, two homeless individuals who he helped reconnect with their families. Tyson, despite having a supportive family, died of a fentanyl overdose, while Rita was rescued by her family and lived 20 more fulfilling years. Fagan, who experienced housing insecurity as a teenager, explains that homelessness stems from systemic poverty issues rather than personal failings. He notes that despite San Francisco's reputation as America’s “homeless central”, 70% of its homeless population lost their homes while already living there.
Here are the 5 KEEN ON AMERICA takeaways from our conversation with Fagan:
* Personal connection to homelessness shapes Fagan's perspective - his own experience with housing insecurity as a youth gives him unique insight and empathy toward homeless individuals.
* Homelessness is not simply a choice - Fagan emphasizes that "no one wants to be homeless" and many fall into homelessness through a combination of trauma, mental illness, addiction, and economic factors.
* Family intervention can be transformative - Rita's story demonstrates how family reconnection (which inspired San Francisco's "Homeward Bound" program) can successfully help people exit homelessness.
* San Francisco's homeless reputation is somewhat misunderstood - despite being known as "Homeless Central," about 70% of San Francisco's homeless population became homeless while already living in the city.
* Solutions require addressing systemic poverty - Fagan argues that homelessness is fundamentally a poverty problem in America, requiring broader economic solutions beyond what individual cities can accomplish alone.
Kevin Fagan is a longtime, award-winning reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, specializing in homelessness, enterprise news-feature writing, breaking news and crime. He has ridden with the rails with modern-day hobos, witnessed seven prison executions, written extensively about serial killers including the Unabomber, Doodler and Zodiac, and covered disasters ranging from the Sept. 11 terror attacks at Ground Zero to California’s devastating wildfires. Homelessness remains a core focus of his, close to his heart as a journalist who cares passionately about the human condition. His book on the rescue of two homeless people, “The Lost and The Found,” is available everywhere books are sold.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
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