Spaz Absurdity Mengele sits in front of the Red Vic Movie House on Haight Street with her family. These people aren’t her siblings or parents; the pale-skinned 18-year-old left home two years ago. This family consists of other street kids who buckled under pressure from abusive fathers, drug-addicted mothers and the general bullshit that comes with life. Like others, Spaz ran away, traveling from state to state, befriending those who share similar histories. She has a black eye from her abusive ex-boyfriend and lacks a mattress to sleep on and proper shelter from the rain promised by darkening clouds. At least she has some company.

“When our real families can’t stand us anymore, we take each other in,” says Justin, a 28-year-old homeless man who fills the role of older brother. The family, booze and drugs make street life bearable.

Haight Street has long been a sideshow attraction for tourists and a freakshow act for San Francisco citizens. The homeless youth are a permanent fixture on the sidewalks. The apathetic simply walk by assuming their story is the same; they’re all junkies too lazy to do what the rest of society must, and only the words on the cardboard signs change. But each kid has a story. That’s why many of the youths from across the United States turn to Haight Street: to become part of a familial subculture and receive the love and respect that only those walking in the same tattered shoes can express.

According to LS Wilson, lead organizer of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, there are anywhere from 8,000 to 14,000 homeless people on the streets of San Francisco on any given day, with less than 2,800 shelter beds to accommodate this population, even in the winter when churches open their doors.

The number of homeless kids in the Haight is unknown, according to Wilson. What is known is that kids from all over flock here like it’s the promised land for the down and out.

“A lot of people hear about the hippie generation,” says Officer John Andrews of the Golden Gate Park police station. “It’s like their Mecca and they make their pilgrimage to Haight Street just to say they did it.”

Spaz just got into San Francisco two days ago. Originally from Lincoln, Neb., she left home at 16 with an older boyfriend.

“I was completely fucking senseless,” Spaz says. “At first, I thought it was the greatest mistake of my life.” Now she doesn’t know when she plans on getting off of the street. She’s a writer and a visual artist who wants to publish her collection of short stories.

Many of the kids talk of big plans for the future. Lena McErbeen isn’t one of these dreamers. The 17-year-old is straightforward and to the point, her words brief. The bruises on her face and track marks on her arms say enough.

“Sorry if I smell bad,” she says, staring at a sidewalk she’s become too familiar with.

She’s been homeless and got addicted to heroine after being kicked out of her home when she was 13. Since then, she’s been hopping trains to get around, making the occasional pit stop on Haight Street.

She’s not ashamed of her drug use. “That’s all there is to do out here.”

The Haight Ashbury Youth Outreach Team, a non-profit drop-in center for homeless youth to acquire basic necessities, offers a free needle exchange program for those on the junk. Inside, it looks like a bunch of kids cutting class and hanging out at a friend’s house when their mom isn’t home. A few kids are stretched on the couches watching TV. One girl checks her e-mail, another is on the phone. A couple of guys are checking to see what’s in the refrigerator. A locker is stocked with condoms, Band-Aids and other free medical resources for clients. On one wall is a board with announcements for free services that are being offered throughout the city such as Hepatitis C shots. Along another wall is a clothesline of cardboard signs. One reads: “Family killed by ninjas, need money for kung foo lessons.”

Being homeless is a bad situation on its own. Homeless with no friends is worse, which is why these kids look after one another.

Inside Golden Gate Park, Ladelly Tomson, 20, helps stitch up the cuts on an old homeless man’s eye. Back on Haight Street outside the Red Vic, someone gives four veggie burgers to Spaz’s crew, which they pass on to others.

“You get accustomed to sharing out here,” says heavy-set Rif, 27, as she and her cat eat leftover mussels given to her by a pedestrian exiting Cha Cha Cha. As a homeless man walks by, she asks in a Southern accent, “You like Mexican food?”and hands him a Styrofoam container.

“We’re all we got,” Rif says.

Most “spange” (ask for spare change) in the day to get by and keep themselves entertained. Nights they retreat to the enclaves of Golden Gate Park where they sleep like boulders, guzzle booze like water and inhale weed smoke like oxygen. Not everyone embraces the organic; others need to cook up a stronger fix.

“This here is hippie town, but it’s not ‘bud, bud, bud’ anymore. These kids don’t know what’s happening until they’re strung out,” says 52-year-old homeless veteran John “Bubba” Powell. “In a few years, it’s gonna be hard for them to get their life back.”

But not everyone wants that life back. Justin, 28, originally from Southern California, had an abusive father and heroine-addicted mother. At 14, he left home and was “exposed to the dirty life.” On the streets, he became schooled in the street pharmacy trade and began prescribing a variety of drugs that can’t be found at Walgreens. After bouncing around the lower Golden State, he saved enough money to travel to Oregon where he decided to settle down. At 19, he met a girl and got married after knowing her for only 30 days. He says he was married for almost 10 years, worked an upper management job at Albertsons, started his own glass-blowing business and sold weed on the side. His wife cheated on him. The two kids he raised weren’t even his; one was fathered by his own brother.

His new family is his street family and his dog Baby, whom he keeps tied to a leash around his ankle. “Look out for family and they look out for you,” he says. Older than most in the Haight, Justin says, “I don’t wanna get 'em high, I wanna help 'em out.”

A friend got him a hotel room in San Bruno for an evening. He rounded up several people so they could take showers, shave and get cleaned up. The day before, he looked like a bum. Now he could pass for a yuppie, given the proper attire.

At the intersection of Stanyan and Haight Streets, a group of hippies are huddled, trying to light a pipe using the sunlight and a magnifying glass. A few feet away, an older homeless man gives a kid who looks 13 a tiny bag of crystal meth to smoke.

Goliath, a 16-year-old who isn’t too gigantic in stature, sits in a circle with the hippies. He left his home in Washington state in July and began hitchhiking down the coast by himself. Goliath, like most kids, came from a broken home. He doesn’t have a father and his mother is a crack addict, he says.

He heard rumors about Haight Street while he was in Washington and, so far, it’s been “pretty fucking good.” Since his arrival, the innocent-looking teen has had a lot of firsts on Haight Street – he smoked hash, took shrooms, did acid and got laid.

He’s a quiet kid who plays the recorder, a flute-like instrument, whenever he’s not speaking. Though young and impressionable, he knows he’s not going to keep up this lifestyle forever. But, at the same time, he says he can’t settle down. “I’m too claustrophobic. A house is too confining.”

A typical day for Goliath goes something like this: “Wake up, try and score breakfast, get stoned somehow along the day, make music, make people laugh, maybe spare change, live life.”

The agenda’s the same for every street kid. In the end, all they want to do is live.