For Jason, the hospital emergency room was practically his home. Literally. He lived on the streets for nearly five long years, making frequent visits to the hospital -- dozens and dozens of times -- because of a pestering chronic disease and no healthcare insurance. The nursing staff knew him by...

I know that suggesting the term "home center" sounds like a Madison Avenue marketing idea hatched by some out-of-touch communications intern. A "home center" reminds me of a big-box retail home store, like Home Depot or Ikea. These retail centers, however, have no association with homelessness other than places where...

It feels like a plot in a Michael Crichton novel, where a specific deadly strain of tuberculosis concentrated in a small neighborhood of a large metropolis wreaks havoc on thousands of people, especially those poor souls who are homeless.

I wish the scenario was simply fiction created by the mind...

It is that time of the year, when pundits start writing their top ten lists as if every American really wants to read the top most influential, best-looking, most powerful people list. Does it really have an impact on our personal lives?

With homelessness still rampant across...

Sometimes creating solutions to difficult problems just need a bit of common sense.

If your credit card debt significantly increases each month, design a personal monthly budget where you spend only the amount of money you earn. If you are trying to lose weight, create a diet where you...

When extremely wealthy celebrities encounter impoverished people who are homeless, sometimes the collision sparks world-wide consequences where a social media frenzy explodes. This is the Hollywood celebrity-version (think TMZ.com) of a diplomatic skirmish.

Take Justin Timberlake's wedding with Jessica Biel, for example. The nuptials of...

Every four years, some new American demographic group gets their 15 minutes of fame during the Presidential election cycle. Also known as the swing voters, they are the target group for election ads and Presidential rallies. Remember the Reagan Democrats? Soccer Moms? NPR Republicans? These groups supposedly...

Oh no, not another riches to rags story about a million dollar celebrity tossing Benjamins like a Vegas gambler, only to end up sleeping behind a trash bin.

Last year, it was child star Danny Bonaduce, the red-headed kid from the 1970s Partridge Family TV show, who...

Policymakers are changing the business of addressing social problems in America.

America's poverty-reduction efforts used to be an initiative called a "War on Poverty" back in the 1960s, where large government programs, like Jobs Corp and Head Start, were entitlement tools used to battle hunger, unemployment, and homelessness....

In the past, national leaders working to address homelessness in America looked at Los Angeles's feeble efforts to house its homeless population with disdain. Some of that judgment was justified, given that Los Angeles has the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in the country, and has even been labeled...

What do the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and political conventions have in common?

Watched by millions of people all over the world, the cities hosting these enormous gatherings do not just beef up their security and repave their streets, they literally "clean up" their communities by sweeping out people who...

Placing people in those coveted, and quite limited, permanent supportive housing units across America is a bit like desperately trying to win that golden ticket in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Millions of people are in need of affordable housing, and only a handful of apartments...

The activity in downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row reminds me of a creepy Michael Crichton sci-fi novel, where people wearing hazmat suits that make them look like Michelin men spray jets of steamed water on the sidewalks below.

But what Los Angeles is doing to its downtown sidewalks, and concurrently...

The political center has become a precarious place for lawmakers who want to embrace compromise. Extreme views from both ends of the political spectrum seem to dominate policies these days.

This same political tug-of-war is also occurring in the world of homelessness. While many cities around the country are passing...

Almost 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson started an ambitious initiative to eliminate poverty in America, which he called The War on Poverty. His weapons were programs that created a national safety net for people battling poverty, like food stamps, Head Start, and Medicare.

Today, is the tide of...

The image of hunger simmering in our consciousness by international relief agencies has been a picture of an impoverished child with a bloated stomach in some faraway nation that we can barely find on the map.

That sad photo of hunger, however, does not accurately reflect America's hungry population,...

Robert Irvine charges in like a bull in a fine dining establishment, except the restaurant in need of rescuing is typically failing, and certainly not fine. His television show on Food Network displays Irvine's talent in reviving dying eateries, with a change of interiors, menu, branding, and of course,...

I'm not surprised anymore when people complain to their local council member about homeless people sleeping in the alley behind their houses. Or when homeowners call the police insisting that these people are breaking the law and need to be arrested.

What about angry neighbors who...

Can a push of a virtual button, or a click of a plastic computer mouse, really change our world?

The generation before me consisted of traditional activists who rebelled against an American society that they thought had wrongfully sent young men to kill Southeast Asians without much clear rationale,...

When homelessness touches a community, polarizing stakeholder camps battle with each other like it is a high-stakes presidential campaign.

The moneyed businesses and homeowners admonish local politicians by threatening to withdraw their financial campaign support, while advocates for the homeless use their vote-getting potential to insinuate they will support...