President George W. Bush encourage the home ownership in this country by urging companies like Sallie Mae (I forget the name of the actual one) to lend money to lower income brackets so they can own homes. After the huge cost of bailing them out, and the whole housing crisis this triggered, I wonder if using that money into helping the homeless would not have been a better idea and use of that money.
Today I met Susanna a homeless woman from Brooklyn while walking to get my groceries at the corner market Trader Joe's. Clean, bright woman that as many homeless has trouble finding a place that is safe to sleep. She hadn't slept in three days. We talked for a bit. She didn't look homeless with her bright purple headphones attached to an almost retro cassette player and wearing a jean jacket full of pins, she looked like a new age lady. Her hair she told me, while clean was a mess and so she hid it with a proud Brooklyn cap she'd gotten as a gift. A friend of hers is putting her up in a hotel for Easter, which is great. I hope she does well.
She has an appointment with the Burbank Temporary Assistance Office, which is located right next to where I used to live when I first moved to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is full of homeless people. I used to volunteer with LAYN (who are having their yearly gala soon, check their website) helping homeless teenagers. The weather here helps living on the street so there may be more visible here than in other places but even in Boston where I spent a summer studying in Harvard I volunteered in a homeless shelter and was surprised by the amount of people homeless there.
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