Presidential candidate Julian Castro (D) on Monday evening in Las Vegas, Nevada, said that while politicians talk plenty about middle-class issues, they are not paying enough attention to the concerns of poor people.
“In our country today, in communities like Las Vegas and many many other communities, we still have a lot of people who are hurting, a lot of people who are sleeping out on the street,” the former San Antonio mayor said before serving food to the homeless. “Homelessness has gone up in our country… families who are right on the brink, who depend on charities, non-profits to give them food, clothing, and other goods…We can’t forget about the folks who are still struggling. And a lot of times in politics we talk about people reaching their dreams, we even talk about the middle class, and we often forget to talk about the poor.”
Sounding a bit like former presidential candidate John Edwards, who went on a “poverty tour” and challenged Democrats to talk more about the issue, Castro, who was also former President Barack Obama’s Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary, said he is trying to do what he can to use his campaign to “highlight the needs of people who are poor in our country.”
“When I was here a few months ago I visited the tunnels that run underneath the Las Vegas strip,” Castro said. “There’s something very ironic about the fact that so many people are sleeping on the street in a city that is known for its glitz and its glamour and these towering hotels that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and folks from around the world who come as tourists and spend mightily in the casinos and the shopping centers… We’re better than this as a country.”