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Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson has some interesting logic on how to run homeless shelters.

Dr. Carson has been taking a tour of various housing projects, homeless shelters and senior citizen homes in an effort to connect with the people whose lives he will be affecting. A report from the New York Times has revealed that he’s happy with what he’s seeing in a couple places.

The NYT writes:

As he toured facilities for the poor in Ohio last week, Mr. Carson, the neurosurgeon-turned-housing secretary, joked that a relatively well-appointed apartment complex for veterans lacked “only pool tables.” He inquired at one stop whether animals were allowed. At yet another, he nodded, plainly happy, as officials explained how they had stacked dozens of bunk beds inside a homeless shelter and purposefully did not provide televisions.

Compassion, Mr. Carson explained in an interview, means not giving people “a comfortable setting that would make somebody want to say: ‘I’ll just stay here. They will take care of me.’”

When reminded of the poor population that consists of mentally ill and elderly people, Dr. Carson offered, “We have some people who are mentally ill. We have some elderly and disabled people. We can’t expect in many cases those people to do a great deal to take care of themselves. “But, there is another group of people who are able-bodied individuals, and I think we do those people a great disservice when we simply maintain them.”

Dr. Carson also insisted that people not be so quick to be alarmed or angry when they hear about President Donald Trump’s budgets cuts. Especially cuts to HUD that would impact programs like Meals On Wheels.

“My impression is that what he is really saying is that there are problems with those programs,” said Carson. “And I think it may have been someone on his staff who kind of said, ‘Well, maybe we just need to get rid of the whole program.’ No, we don’t need to get rid of the whole program because there are some extremely good things there.”

Carson also said that one of his priorities moving forward is to get more land developers to hire people living in low-income areas for construction work.

What do you thnk of Dr. Carson’s philosophies? Do you think he is making America great again by keeping the poor from getting comfortable in shelters?

Photo: WENN.com