The Trump administration’s housing secretary Ben Carson has claimed that poverty is largely “a state of mind”.
Carson, the man responsible for tackling homelessness and providing low-cost housing as secretary of housing and urban development (HUD), said poverty stemmed from parents giving their kids “the wrong mindset”.
“A lot of it has to do with what we teach children,” said Carson, appointed by President Trump to the department earlier this year. “You have to instil into that child the mindset of a winner.”
Congresswoman Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, tweeted her response to Carson’s comments: “States of mind: Happy. Sad. New York. Not a state of mind: Systemic poverty.”
No child should be without a home, let alone be forced to navigate red tape to prove that they are actually homeless
Housing charities in the US have been trying to get Carson’s department to change how they count the number of homeless people across the nation.
Back in March, Ohio congressman Steve Stivers, a Democrat, introduced a bill to expand HUD’s definition of homelessness. The effort is designed to get more families with children the help they need.