This weekend I was in the Dana Point/Laguna Niguel area with my family celebrating Easter, and I got to thinking about the article we read and discussed earlier this week on the homeless populations being pushed out of Orange County. As I was driving around, I saw endless gated neighborhoods, high end grocery stores, and public parks- clearly all at the disposal of pretty wealthy families. Especially since the article mentioned Laguna Niguel, our discussions on NIMBY really began to make sense. Trying to put myself in their shoes, I thought about how beautiful the neighborhoods were and how different they would look with homeless encampments in a few locations. But then I began to think about all we have learned this semester: about how these homeless individuals are rarely dangerous, how people can be so misunderstanding of their position, and how there are so few resources offered. Perhaps the people of Laguna Niguel are afraid of homeless camps being near their children’s schools, but it sure seems like more progress could be made on the issue if people would use all their effort usually put towards complaining towards finding affordable housing in their communities instead. I think that people tend to forget that the homeless individuals they observe and come into contact with are fellow community members rather than strangers they have nothing in common with.