Brett Smith's buddies don't visit him in his new apartment, three blocks from Ocean Beach and a world away from his old stomping grounds in the Tenderloin. And Smith couldn't be more pleased about the solitude.

"If they come out here, they have to really want to come out here," he said. "Trouble cannot walk up on me."

Smith is a 54-year-old Army veteran whose failing eyesight and migraines meant he had to give up his job as a limousine driver. He was homeless and struggling with substance abuse before scoring a coveted federal housing voucher for homeless veterans in April.