As all of us begin to gather together for our Super Bowl parties and gatherings, here’s an article that I’d like to pass along.

John Canzano is the senior sports columnist for the Oregonian, he’s down in Phoenix — the host city of the Super Bowl — and instead of deciding to focus on the massive parties like the Playboy Super Bowl party that’ll cost you $3,000 to get in like most media outlets have done this week, he found the dark side of the Super Bowl.

The homeless people here will tell you that they’ve been picked up by local police at bus stops, on freeway on-ramps, and while standing outside downtown office buildings, and they’ve been dropped off in a nine-square-block downtown area that street people call, “The Zone.” More on that later…

The alleys here stink of urine. There is a glass crack pipe on the ground in front of one of the homeless shelters. The transients who have been corralled here — some battling mental illness, some fighting sobriety, some just down on their luck — explain that they can drink alcohol from an open container, do illegal drugs, panhandle, sleep on the sidewalk, litter, loiter, and nobody seems to care.

“The only thing we’re not allowed to do,” said 63-year-old Army veteran Wilmer Payne, “is go outside this area where people can see us.”

As the eyes of the entire world, over a billion people watching, Phoenix has ensured that the scars of one of the poorest cities in the country won’t be seen.

Read the whole article here.