About a quarter-century ago, Joe Marshall noticed something about the neighborhoods on the east side of San Francisco. Many of the teenagers living in the projects of Potrero Hill and the Bayview were dropping out of school – and worse: “It’s pretty tough to have a kid get an ‘A’ in geometry at the age of 13, and be dead by the age of 20,” Marshall said. He could have turned away and gone about his life, but instead, he chose to get involved.

In January, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced his goal to reduce the number of homeless people on San Francisco’s streets by 50% and the city’s overall homeless count by 30% by the end of 2010. And he vowed not to leave office before his goals were met. Newsom’s New Year’s resolution is an ambitious one, and he hasn't given any concrete details on how he would finance his plan in the face of a $522 million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year. He also hasn't said where the approximately 3,200 homeless people currently on the streets will go.