A majority of San Francisco's homeless have been on the streets since the 1980s, and it won't be long before the aging population puts a strain on the health care system as they get sick and die.
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Fifty-year-old Nathan "Nasty" Swift, who has the wrinkled face of a 65-year-old and has been homeless most of the time since 1981, said the study's findings "sound about right to me."
Swift was a submarine sonar technician in the Navy, but after he mustered out on July 5, 1980, he said, he did too many drugs and made too many bad job decisions to stay stable.
"I was like a lot of guys who just burned out and had nothing around to help us," he said, heading to a panhandling spot on Market Street near Van Ness Avenue. "That study says we're all old and our health is shot? Sounds like me and everyone I know.
"I don't see a lot of young guys out here anymore. Just old guys like me."
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