This week we had a speaker come in and discuss homelessness within the Redlands community. This speaker was Ed Torres. He is the Chair of the Board of  the Center for Spiritual Living. He first got involved in this issue when the shelter in redlands closed down. Ed agreed to open the church at night to women to have somewhere to sleep.

It was very interesting hearing about this issue we have been discussing all semester from a local point of view. Our speaker was very knowledgable of the issues in our community. He talked about how a very high percentage of the homeless individuals in redlands are from redlands. He talked about how this meant these are people’s brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc.

He spoke a lot about his plan for the future of redlands. He talked about wanting to take government owned buildings that are vacant and use them as centers for the homeless. He talked about using underground parking structures at night as somewhere for homeless to sleep, or for those that sleep in their cars to have somewhere safe to sleep.

I really enjoyed his thoughts and the ways in which the community can make steps into providing resources for the disadvantaged individuals in our community.