By David Whiting / Orange County Register
Photo by Kevin Sullivan / Orange County Register
Originally published in Orange County Register.
If human beings are like stars — and bright or barely twinkling we all are stars in our own way — then the homeless are the shiniest of them.
It is a cold and very late Wednesday night and I have just spent more than four hours with volunteers looking behind bushes, walking railroad tracks, scouting parks to count the homeless.
Understand, this count is part of a federally ordered biennial program so we can better help those in need and this night is Orange County’s first night count. Yet the more we look, the more the effort — however valiant — feels like we are only gathering stardust.
As midnight approaches, a photographer and I cruise down empty streets to return to the Point in Count staging area. But as we drift through Santa Ana’s downtown, there is movement in the shadows.
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