How Would a President Donald Trump Address Homelessness? | HuffPost Impact - Action News
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Posted: 2011-04-11T21:47:56Z | Updated: 2011-06-11T09:12:01Z

Besides the political brinkmanship played out with the federal budget negotiations this past week, the talk of the town in D.C. has been about who would run against President Obama next year.

The Republican party has been shaking their political trees across the country in search of a perfect candidate. Look who falls from the political tea leaves of expectations: Donald Trump , the New Yorker who exudes money and excess. With his perfectly coiffed hair, he embraces a T.V. camera like it's a stack of gold bricks.

One wonders what a President Donald Trump would do to address the rampant growth of homelessness in this country. Such a thought is not a far-fetched idea since in the early 1990s this pop icon of wealth was nearly bankrupt. He could have been one of those broke celebrities crying to TMZ about how he was homeless.

But not Trump. He fought back to regain his wealth.

At the basement of his career, when he owed a billion dollars to debtors, the rumor was he was walking with his daughter and pointed to a homeless man telling her, "See that bum? He has a billion dollars more than me ."

Perhaps his description of a homeless man as a bum reveals more about what his federal homeless policy would be than anything.

A few years before Trump teetered on bankruptcy, a group sent to him a Canadian newspaper article with a picture of a homeless Canadian sitting on the sidewalk reading Trump's book, "Trump: The Art of the Deal." Trump sent the man a check for a $1,000.

Would the altruistic side of this billionaire influence a Trump administration?

Could those of us on the frontlines of homelessness imagine seeing President Trump house the nearly 1 million homeless Americans in his hotels, residential properties, resorts, and office towers? Could we see him converting his golf courses into land for affordable housing?

I could just imagine the white collared professionals being evicted from Trump's $290 million Trump World Tower so that homeless persons could be moved in.

I could see his gold-looking hotel towering over the Las Vegas strip being converted into permanent supportive housing.

Of course, any new shelter or housing development would be named after him. The Trump Homeless Shelter of New York. The Trump Rescue Mission. Trump Homeless Towers.

With his insistence that our current President release his birth certificate , perhaps a President Trump would demand that every homeless American would have to carry their own birth certificate if they receive services or housing.

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Who knows what could happen.

Perhaps the American people might just tell him, "You're fired!" before the presidential campaign even begins.