Street Kids in Austin

One community that has fascinated me is the gutter punks, or street kids, who long populated The Drag, the shopping district across the street from the University of Texas campus. These kids lived in stark contrast to the UT students living across the way: they rarely worked except to sell drugs, had no permanent home by choice, and instead, embraced the streets or squatted in abandoned buildings. They traveled extensively, hitchhiking or hopping trains, and formed a tight-knit, insular culture where freedom was the ultimate value. Their lives were often short, marked by the harsh realities of their choices.