6 February 2010
san-francisco & culture — #
On Homelessness: Clarence Williams
A portrait of Clarence Williams
This is Clarence Williams. He’s 54 years old.
You can often find him where I found him last Friday morning: soaking up the morning sun somewhere on Clementina where it hits 5th street.
This is his story, or at least part of it:
He was born in New Orleans, served in Viet Nam but then came down with HIV/AIDS shortly after returning in the early 80s and left for the refuge of San Francisco, away from the taboos and stares of the south.
With nothing to his name, he signed up to be an experimental tester for every AIDS drug he could find.
“And I did a lot of street drugs, too,” he told me last Friday.
“And one thing led to another,” he admitted, “Now, I’m here.”
One day, he would like to write a book about his life.