According to our own Department of Housing and Urban Development, California holds 49% of the our homeless population. The year round great weather is a plus the benefits don’t hurt and the permissiveness of its leaders are a definite attraction. This is 8 times higher than the next closest state, Florida. Funny as you look at the map below we see this is not a red or blue issue, but one for America!

We as Americans need to find a way to do more to help these folks get back on their feet. I understand it’s not a ‘sexy’ issue and our leaders use the costs to inflame🔥& divide us. We need to move past the rhetoric. Locally I think of all the empty hotel rooms around for months during the year and think wouldn’t we be better served housing these folks. Then as I travel around I notice the mammoth closed or dying shopping malls, couldn’t they be better served as places to house the homeless? Our history shows us focusing on ignoring, incarcerating or even pushing the homeless to the woods outside the city limits AND this hasn’t worked! So why do we keep doing the same things over and over? Just think if we attempted this we could provide counseling, job training and more giving folks all they need to at least keep a roof over their heads and a hand up rebuilding their lives.

The divide in America between those with and without is growing exponentially. We could always do what we have always done and continue to wait for help from those with the resources and power 🤔. That to me is the definition of insanity and has gotten us nowhere. We need to stop believing that if we vote a President or political party in we will be rescued. This will not happen.

Only the American people can rise up and bring about this change. The first way is to flood social media with our thoughts and concerns directly onto their personal threads as well as those of their particular party affiliation. Trust me, these folks care about how they look online so this a way to hold our elected officials accountable. The second is to support candidates who truly follow what you believe rather than a friend, the prettiest, or the lesser of two evils. We need to strengthen our country from the bottom up for a change and help raise our standard of living. I do not believe we should all be struggling so hard just to survive.