For some time now, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been at the forefront of the efforts to remove President Donald Trump from office. But one of his constituents thinks Schiff may have some more pressing things to work on.
Celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky said on Fox & Friends that Schiff is “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to the homelessness crisis in his home state of California. “I live in Adam Schiff’s district,” Pinsky told Fox on Thursday. “He’s asleep at the wheel here.”
Pinsky is a medical doctor who first rose to fame for his role on reality shows dealing with addiction and rehab, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Recently, he has spent a lot of time focused on the issue of homelessness in the Golden State.
The homelessness problem
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reports that California is home to over half of the nation’s homeless population, and the number there is growing, according to The Washington Post. In recent years, Golden State cities like San Francisco have become notorious for garbage, used hypodermic needles, and human waste piling up on public streets.
For his part, Pinsky suggested to Fox that California treats its undocumented workers better than those who are homeless in the state.
“For God’s sake, we’ve absorbed 1.5 million undocumented workers in California. None of them are on the street,” the physician said.
The doctor went on to liken the problem to a public health crisis.
“My God, if coronavirus were killing three people a day in our country, do you not think people would be in absolute outrage and panic?” he asked. “But for some reason, this mental health crisis that is homelessness, because people have mental illness and are living on our streets, somehow we step over them, and they die right in front of us.”
A “modern” solution
Pinsky has mulled running against Schiff for his seat in the House, which represents part of northern Los Angeles, according to the Washington Examiner. But the doctor told Fox on Friday that he is “categorically not running” this year.
Still, the crisis is impossible for the celebrity doctor to ignore, Fox reported. “These are my patients dying on the street,” Pinsky lamented. “I know the population. I have served them for 30 years.”
Pinsky went on to tout a piece of California state legislation known as SB-640, which, in his words, “would expand the definition of the gravely disabled. So, immediately, family with resources and a bed to put their loved one in could go get them, bring them off the street, and treat them with a change in the definition.”
“We need to create modern laws for our current state of brain science,” he concluded.
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