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This year we continued to document the region’s homelessness crisis. We met people on the street who offered us a look inside their lives and the hardships they’ve experienced. We also documented moments of joy. San Diegans spent time with their families, broke barriers and enjoyed life in their communities.

Here are some of our favorite images of 2023. All photos were shot by Ariana Drehsler.

January

Heavy rains in January caused major flooding in San Diego’s neighborhoods. While most eyes were on Mission Valley (a spot that usually floods), I drove to San Ysidro on Jan. 16 and found ranchers struggling to move their animals out of flooded areas. I documented the chaotic scene that day in a photo essay.

February

Hayden Gore, president of High Tech Education Collective, and Roxanne Sepehri, vice president, celebrate after the votes were counted from union members to ratify the contract at the San Diego Education Association headquarters in Mission Valley on Feb. 2, 2023.

March

A man lights up a cigarette in his tent at a homeless encampment on Commercial Street on March 30, 2023.

April

People walk around in Chicano Park in Barrio Logan on April 22, 2023.

May

Trash can be seen from what is left from a homeless encampment underneath a freeway on Commercial Street on May 18, 2023.

June

Rachel Hayes sits in her new apartment and is overcome with emotion in San Ysidro on June 20, 2023. Hayes had not lived in a home since 2012. I met Hayes while working on a photo essay about the what unhoused residents think is missing from the region’s response to homelessness. When I met Hayes, she was living in a tent in downtown.

July

A shopping cart with belongings sits on Commercial Street sidewalk in the outskirts of downtown on July 31, 2023.

August

Fans at Petco Park during a San Diego Padres vs. Baltimore Orioles game on Aug. 16, 2023.

September

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials drive toward a makeshift camp near Jacumba to pick up families for processing on Sept. 17, 2023.

October

Teenagers and young adults gathered late at night to dance the night away to electronic dance music (EDM) inside a tunnel. After hearing about the underground raves in San Diego and other cities throughout the country, I wanted to see if anything had changed since the 90’s.

November

Bobby Wallace of the Barona Band of Mission Indians poses for a photo while holding the Kumeyaay flag outside the San Diego Unified School District headquarters in University Heights on Nov. 3, 2023.

December

Brothers Graeson, 12, and Owen Shields, 7, take a pool break after a teaching lesson in Vista on Dec. 5, 2023.

The post From the Streets to an Underground Rave: Photos of the Year 2023 appeared first on Voice of San Diego.