For reasons that I don’t understand, San Diego holds its annual Pride parade (today, as a matter of fact) in July rather than June, which is the official month for celebrating the Alphabet coalition. Someone reading will have a conniption for my vernacular. Don’t be offended. This post should still be live in 10 years, and who knows how many more letters will be tacked on by then. Alphabet covers them all.
The main parade route and celebratory location is the main gay enclave of Hillcrest, which is adjacent to my community of University Heights. Hillcrest is grungy. Sidewalks are filthy and reek of urine. Homeless scatter about sleeping in nooks or out in the open. Some of the more industrious push about carts upon which hang bags of clanging cans and bottles, which are recyclable redeemable.
These, ah, zombies starkly contrast with the wealthier gay residents who pay thousands of dollars to rent apartments—many in the new high-rise buildings flanking either side of University Avenue. The city is hellbent on increasing Hillcrest’s population density, which creates congestion and precipitates more homelessness—as longtime, and often older, residents are evicted and are unable to find affordable rentals anywhere else.
According to Zumper, currently (meaning today), the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Hillcrest is $2,350. Two-bedroom: $3,150. Seventy-one percent of the households are “renter-occupied”. The street dwellers aren’t treated as households.
On July 16, 2025, when walking through Hillcrest for an errand, I was surprised by the number of homeless folks sleeping or puttering about three days before Pride. Typically, the city clears them out well before the event, which I regard as a tragic sweeping the problem under the rug, so to speak. Hillcrest cleans up for the parade, although filth and stink remain; either parade people don’t notice, don’t care, or are simply accustomed to it.
The Featured Image is illustrative, and it’s chosen for composition—the seemingly downtrodden gentleman set against the rainbow-painted cement posts. Either he isn’t homeless, or he is recently so disposed; the gent and his clothes were clean, but he also talked to himself in a manner typical among many street inhabitants.
Point being: The zombies of Hillcrest are the problem with Pride and much of what the Alphabet coalition celebrates and demands for itself. A laundry list of reasons is unnecessary; the paragraphs above speak for themselves. Please make your own list of reasons why.
I used Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to shoot the portrait. Vitals: f/3.4, ISO 32, 1/500 sec, (synthetic) 230mm (digital and optical zoom); 10:16 a.m. PDT.