Dear John,
Yesterday I was driving through Las Vegas with a friend, and as we were stopped at a stoplight she pointed to my right and said, “Oh my God, look.”
As I turned I saw a group of homeless people being scattered by police. They had been trying to escape the high Nevada heat by staying under a highway overpass, and were now being forced to move.
I have no idea where they were told to go.
Over 600,000 Americans are homeless, many people living in their car while working full time! Many were holding on until one rent check they simply couldn’t afford, and that was it. Last year alone there were over 3 million evictions, which is higher than during the housing crisis of 2008.
Each year, an estimated 4.2 million young people in the United States experience a form of homelessness.
We cannot simply continue the way things are going, and expect any of this to change. It is now baked into the cake in America that a large part of our population is simply thrown away.
And that is why our campaign is important. It will take a massive infusion of economic hope and opportunity into the life of the average American in order to repair the gaping wounds that confront us. It will take time, but with my administration we will get started. None of the people who are homeless in America were born to fail, or to fall through the cracks. It says something not just about them, but about our society, that so many people do.
