We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

We see people talking to themselves all the time. We always have. Particularly if they're homeless people or at all questionable, there's a sense of, 'That guy's crazy!' I see that now with a much more empathetic eye.

We need more housing in San Francisco, plain and simple, and we especially need more affordable housing for our low-income households, seniors, teachers, formerly homeless people, veterans, and middle-income residents.

Most people never really sat down and got to know a homeless person, but every homeless person is just a real person that was created by God and it is the same kind of different as us; they just have a different story.

I met a woman working 30 hours a week, trying to make ends meet, three children. And she slept the night before I met her in her car because she's homeless. We can do better. We can build a nation of shared prosperity.

By incarcerating someone who is homeless or addicted or who suffers from mental health challenges, we only further destabilize that person and create situations where they are more likely to commit crimes in the future.

I'd been in Sacramento a day and already noticed the pervasiveness of its homeless problem. The city seemed like California without the masks or pretense: a place where dreams were occasionally made but mostly torn apart.

Puerto Rico has a stray dog problem. Tens of thousands of homeless canines - hundreds of thousands, by some estimates - live and die on the streets and beaches all over this Caribbean island of almost four million people.

I notice how well or badly a guy treats a waiter, or whether he's kind to some people and not to others. One guy I was with actually yelled, 'Get out of my face!' at a homeless man. Needless to say, there was no second date.

What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.

People like me - who set up a homelessness foundation, worked with all the homeless charities, authored probably six of seven homelessness papers - don't make changes without thinking through the impact of them on the homeless.

When I recently spent a night at a homeless shelter, I was dismayed that members of the middle class had moved in and that earning above the minimum wage did not protect adults from having to share a room with dozens of others.

When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be good, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless.

I guess because I had such a horrible life growing up, going from place to place not knowing what I was gonna do and ending up being homeless, there was a lot of pain and a lot of anger that was coming out through my guitar playing.

You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.

Mike Webster lost all his money or, maybe, gave it away. He forgot. A lot of lawsuits. Mike Webster forgot how to eat, too. Soon, Mike Webster was homeless, living in a truck, one of its windows replaced with a garbage bag and tape.

That's something that I learned when I was homeless. Hotels are awesome because they are going to let you in and you can use the bathroom and when you're young and pretty you can probably use the pool. Somebody might by you a drink.

One of my first observations about New York that I was so fascinated with was that you'd be at a stoplight, and you're with everybody; there's a homeless dude and some weird celebrity and a cop and someone who looks exactly like you.

Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion - painting, writing, music. People seem less status-conscious. Even wealthy people buy second-hand clothes and look a little bit homeless.

I'm somewhat of a socialist in the sense that I believe in housing for the homeless and medical care for all. So, for me, the American dream has been having a TV show, and being successful and having a nice house and having everything.

I went from broke and homeless sleeping on couches. Couldn't even figure out what I was doing in Los Angeles. Now, I'm paying my own bills. I'm about to move my mama in with me at 19. I'm on tour now, and this is all off of one mixtape.

I lived in a homeless shelter. That's what I mean when I say I've been in situations where people need help. I don't remember my exact age, but I remember there were two bunk beds and five of us in there: me, my three sisters and my mum.

Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music.

When you're spending eight to 10 hours out there, the homeless guy is no longer homeless; it's Dave. They become people to you. I think we're really good in this country about saying that they're homeless and, therefore, they don't exist.

I learned Spanish as my second language from middle school through high school. I grew up volunteering at homeless shelters and tutoring kids of Latin immigrants in Atlanta, who didn't speak any English. That prepared me for when I traveled.

I was going to some fabulous party, and my taxi got stuck in traffic, and I looked out the window, and I saw a homeless woman rooting through the garbage, and I realized it was my mother. And I was so mortified that I ducked down, and I hid.

If you ever go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City, if you stay there long enough, you'll see a homeless person standing in the middle of their nice, beautiful square, holding out a cup for change. And the Mormons don't ever ask him to leave.

I always think about what's the difference between being tenacious and having an inability to learn from failures. The difference between the homeless guy who wanted to be a great painter and the guy who is a great painter could be anything.

There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

Scott Hall is a great wrestler, a better friend, but more than anything a very caring human being. Scott never passed a homeless person or someone in need without opening his wallet. This is a guy that has the first two nickels he ever made.

I knew a homeless guy who'd give all the copper coins that people gave him to charity. So I think there's something that makes us want to give. For me, it's quite a selfish luxury: you feel enlivened, deepened and self-nurtured by generosity.

I was homeless for almost a year and a half, just living in my car or bouncing around peoples' houses, going to 7-Eleven at the end of the day and asking them for the taquitos that they were going to throw out because I hadn't eaten in two days.

I have a son, who is a... not an ordinary form of schizophrenia, but clearly, cannot take care of himself. And the great fear of then, of all parents is, when the parents die, who takes care of your child? And the answer is: they become homeless.

During all my undergrad years and in high school, I was involved in tutoring and public service. At Harvard, I spent over 35 hours a week doing service. I was a Big Sister, I worked for the homeless, the elderly; it was the epicenter of my focus.

In college, when I was kind of confronted with facts and figures about inequality in America, a big impulse I had was to go hang out with homeless people around my university and hear them out and understand their situation from their perspective.

I'm really a big fan of HBO and Showtime shows, so I wouldn't mind being on an edgy show... where I could challenge myself to do gritty stuff - a homeless guy or just some guy with a lot going on who's got problems. It's more fun to do as an actor.

I always knew that I would give back. My mother and my father both believe you have to work hard and give back. That's why I was a volunteer firefighter, that's why I worked in a homeless shelter. I always knew I'd give back, elective office or not.

Me and my girlfriend don't have any family in Ipswich, so we were thinking of what we could do to fill our time on Christmas Day. We thought about feeding the homeless and we phoned up the church that we eventually went to and asked if we could help.

The biggest misconception about the homeless is that they got themselves in the mess - let them get themselves out. Many people think they are simply lazy. I urge those to make a friend at a local mission and find out how wrong these assumptions are.

I've been the teenage success, I've been homeless and driving around in my car and not knowing where to eat. You just want to keep working and learning, and I was doing that. If I hadn't done 'Wild Bill,' I'm sure I would have acted in something else.

David Cameron's government criminalised squatting in empty homes. This too was previously a civil matter. Thousands of homeless people found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Some have been imprisoned for using property abandoned by its owners.

'Dirtbag' is just the term we use, like a 'gnarly dude' in surfing. Within the climbing culture, it means being a committed lifer: someone who has embraced a minimalist ethic in order to rock climb. It basically means you're a homeless person by choice.

I think, on any given day, somebody could help out a homeless person and cuss out somebody that cut them off in traffic, and I think that everybody has that inside them: it's just how you live that balance - so I think everybody is 'Wretched and Divine.'

If my fans want to do something for me when that time comes, I say, don't waste your money on me. Help the homeless. Help the needy... people who don't have no food... Instead of some big funeral, where they come from here and there and all over. Save it.

All of us who covered the Reagans agreed that President Reagan was personable and charming, but I'm not so certain he was nice. It's hard for me to think of anyone as 'nice' when I hear him say 'The homeless are homeless because they want to be homeless.'

Live television invites a lot of comic relief, and I've definitely had my share. I got tongue-twisted on the word 'prevalent' once; had a homeless man accost me during a segment; and got my mic snagged off when a congressional staffer barged into my frame.

There are congressmen in our congregation, judges, federal reserve governors. And there are also people who are homeless and some who are mentally ill. To be able to talk to each of those people is something that I've had to learn how to do over the years.

The first time I came to New York - and the first time I saw the movie 'Paris Is Burning' - I learned about the homeless LGBT culture in New York City that goes back to the '80s. I found that very interesting, and it's definitely something that I care about.

Over the years, I have been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, Easter Bunny, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and counselor for adults and kids with mental illness - I quit my last real job in 2000 to work on writing full-time.

Like most people I knew, I thought drug addicts were the kinds of people we see in doorways in neighbourhoods most of us try to avoid - people obviously strung out, often homeless and possibly psychotic. I didn't think my son could become addicted, but he had.

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