When you see a person who lives on the street, it's easy for the first question you ask yourself to be 'what did they do to themselves to end up here?'
In part one of our "KFBK Special Report: Homelessness", Ryan Harris talks to a young woman whose choices led to her life of day-to-day survival.
Check back daily for more of Ryan's reports.
The people who live on the streets come in all kinds: men and women, old and young, single and families - and from different backgrounds.
In part one of our "KFBK Special Report: Homelessness", RyanHarris introduces us to a veteran who's doing what he can to get by.
There are more than 2,600 people with no place to go on any given night in Sacramento County, and the reasons why are as varied as the backgrounds of the people themselves.
In part two of our KFBK Special Report on homelessness, Ryan Harris finds out what some of those reasons are.
There is no one factor, one lifestyle choice, one outside influence that you can point to and say 'this is why we have so many homeless people living on our streets.'
In part two of our KFBK Special Report on homelessness Ryan Harris's discovers there is not even one definition of homelessness.
We often see the job of the police as 'enforcers,' and that includes how they deal with homeless people.
In Part Three of our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris went out with the Sacramento Police Impact team, which avoids sweeping away the homeless problem.
Sacramento's no camping ordinance has been a bone of contention with the hundreds of people who live on the city's streets, who say they have to sleep somewhere, and that they'll fight until the ordinance is repealed. In part three of our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris talks with the special police team focused solely on homeless people
Life on the streets of cities like Sacramento is tough enough if you're healthy, but no home can often mean no regular access to health care.
In our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris meets some people who take health care to the street.
When you get a minor cut, it's easy to take for granted something as simple as putting a bandage and some ointment on it, but those minor cuts can turn ugly fast for people who do not have a home with a medicine cabinet.
In our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris talks to some medical professionals who try to help homeless people take care of the health conditions they can't easily handle themselves...
The number of families with children who have no place to go is on the rise. In our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris talks to the people at a school just for kids with no address to place them in a school district.
California is considered second worst in the country when it comes to shelter for homeless youth. In our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris talks to some people trying to help some of the most vulnerable.
Helping people who are homeless involves a lot more than signing up for government programs for shelter or food.
In our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris talks to a private, non-profit organization among the many that can guide single people and families from crisis to a stable home.
People forced to live on the street because they have no home of their own don't fit into a specific mold. They are single men and women, families and even seniors who've reached the point in their lives where they should have the care they need.
In our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris learns more about a local organization with a shelter that doesn't have as many barriers for people who don't fit the mold.
It is one thing to live on the street, but that life takes on a whole new dimension when the weather turns bad. That happened this year for the first time in several winters.
In part seven of our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris looks at the response when the rivers rose and two people died in the cold.
One of the things that makes Sacramento County's homeless issue a crisis is the lack of shelter space. That shortage also creates a barrier to services that could help people get into a permanent home.
As we continue our Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris reminds us about a possible solution that might be less expensive than some other options.
Of the roughly 2,600 people we know are living on the streets in Sacramento County, about one in four are veterans, which means there are as many as 600 or 700 people - possibly more - who have served our country and are now homeless.
In part eight of our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris learns about some of the help aimed specifically at those veterans.
There's a lot of time, effort and money that goes into the attempt to tackle the Sacramento area's homeless problem.
In part eight of our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, Ryan Harris talks to the man in charge of the one agency that is the place where city and county officials, private service providers and others come to collaborate.
With at least 26-hundred people living on the street in Sacramento County alone, local elected leaders have made it a top priority to do what they can to make a serious dent in that number. In part nine of KFBK's special report on homelessness, our Ryan Harris hears from the two men leading the effort to get people the help they need.
With at least 26-hundred people living on the street in Sacramento County alone, local elected leaders have made it a top priority to do what they can to make a serious dent in that number. In part nine of KFBK's special report on homelessness, our Ryan Harris hears from the two men leading the effort to get people the help they need.
When we began our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness, we introduced you to a young woman named Ashley, a drug addict who had been living on the street for more than a year.
We didn't know what happened to Ashley until that interview aired, and she called to give KFBK's Ryan Harris the update.
A happy update to a story we brought you as part of our KFBK Special Report on Homelessness - about a young woman, addicted to heroin who'd been living on the streets of Sacramento for nearly two years.