Both of the presentations we listened to this week gave me a greater appreciation for the difficulties of practically correcting this housing problem. The thing that stuck with me with the first presentation on Monday was when the speakers from San Bernardino Homeless Outreach explained how there is an extent to what they can do, based on where the person in need of assistance is psychologically that day. If someone isn’t wanting help it isn’t within their rights to put them in some kind of program, even if it would help. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing because people have the right to make their own decisions; and it isn’t right to assume that people not struggling with poverty automatically know what is best for people in those situations.

On a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there is a 211 number you can call for homeless issues. This is both less expensive for the taxpayer and the people who show up to the issue are specifically trained for it. I wish this was a more well-known fact because more people would probably use that number and then we wouldn’t be waiting until someone is a potential danger before alerting authorities. The people talking to us were pretty clearly more conscious about homeless issues than many of the police we have read about. They talking about how charging someone with a misdemeanor is about $1000 and doesn’t fix anything and how there is a current trend of criminalization instead of reintegrating back into society.