Ruben Hinojosa Quotes

The public thinks that homelessness is about not having any accommodation to go to.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

If we were really tough on crime, we'd try to save our children from the desperation and deprivation that leave them primed for a life of crime.

There are five issues that make a fist of a hand that can knock America out cold. They're lack of jobs, obesity, diabetes, homelessness, and lack of good education.

I have seen bright young people all over this country in an ocean surrounded by the sharks of drugs, alcohol, violence, homicide, suicide, AIDS and teenage pregnancy while we argue over whose values we are going to teach.

It's hunger. It's homelessness, often. It's underfunded, under-resourced schools. It's abuse beyond the chilling. It's having overwhelmed parents and caregivers. Those are the things that young people are struggling with beyond our view.

In my family and in my community, I see people struggling with drug addiction, with poverty and the effects of generational poverty; I see people struggling with lack of access to healthcare.

My real passion is social justice, resolving the lack of empowerment, the lack of skills, the fact that young people can't get on the housing ladder, they feel they can't have a decent job, they feel they aren't in control of their lives.

For young people in the U.K. who find themselves without anywhere to live - perhaps they have left the family home after a relationship breakdown, or to escape abuse, or have left care - it is far too easy to become trapped in a chain of misfortune, with little help from the state.

Homelessness is an umbrella term for a lot of different problems that need separate solutions.

When I was leaving I kind of felt a little bit sad, because I made some friends down in skid row.

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.

What shocks me is that so many people leave care and become homeless, and when you're homeless you get into crime, prostitution and drugs, and it is a vicious circle. That's what we need to change.

If you look at people who seek a lot of care in American cities for multiple illnesses, it's usually people with a number of overwhelming illnesses and a lot of social problems, like housing instability, unemployment, lack of insurance, lack of housing, or just bad housing.

You walk past people in streets, or they serve you in shops, and you know nothing about the horrors they may be living with.

There are so many bad influences out there. I don't care if a kid is rich or poor, if he lives in a million-dollar house or the ghetto, he is going to find some sick things on the street. And if we don't clean it up soon, we're all going to pay the price.

We can't just rail against crime. We must speak of the root problems - devastating family breakup, an insidious culture of violence that cheapens human life, skyrocketing prisoner recidivism rates that rob our communities of husbands and fathers - and recognize that there is a societal role in rehabilitation and restoration.

There are young people all over the country who don’t always have the helping hand, the second chance that I had.

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

My mum literally drives into Skid Row every day and manages teams that are assembled to walk around and engage with usually chronically homeless people and try to get them into permanent housing.

I have spent a lot of time listening to people who are serving life sentences and getting to know them and the circumstances of their lives. I have never met anyone serving a long prison sentence who had anything close to what I could call a childhood; instead, the upbringings always - always - involve extreme situations of poverty and abuse.

I was a prosecutor for 25 years. I saw so many 15, 16, even 20 year-olds who could not read, had little hope that they would ever find work, faced more challenges than opportunities in life, dropped out of school at some point, and turned to crime.

Of course homelessness has many causes and the solutions are often frustratingly complex.

Sadly, youth homelessness is an issue throughout the country.

I am a psycho therapist and I used to teach street children.