I'm Hannah Rosen.
This is Radio Atlantic.
Last year, we published a series called No Easy Fix.
If you haven't heard it, you should go back and listen.
It's about San Francisco's attempts to address pockets of homelessness and addiction.
It's also a close and unusually humane portrait of one man.
His name is Evan, living on the streets and barely managing his fentanyl addiction.
Today, We have an update on that series.
When reporter Ethan Brooks met Evan, he was in bad shape.
It's raining.
I'm cold.
I'm hungry.
And I'm over it.
I'm so over it.
Years of addiction had left him with a leg that was so swollen and infected that he was at risk of losing it.
On top of that, he couldn't keep food down, and he didn't know why.
His best friend Joe was worried.
I mean, I expect Evan to die out there.
I have seen no pieces of evidence that persisted beyond 72 hours of him heading in any other direction,
and I've seen 10,000 pieces of evidence of him headed towards death.