A few years back, Phillip West lived on the streets of San Antonio, waiting to die.
He had once held down a sales job at a nonprofit. He paid taxes. He took college courses. He was a part of society — fully human, he said. Back then, he frowned on people suffering from addiction, living and dying outside.
“I didn’t know it could be that bad,” he said. “I didn’t understand how a person could be that lost. And so I had no sympathy for them.”…