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  • 4 months ago
After getting sober in February, a 35-year-old former barbershop owner came to California and cuts the hair of the homeless for free to give them a fresh outlook. - REUTERS
Transcript
00:00Up to four hours a day for the past month, you can find Baraldo Gabaldon cutting the hair
00:06of the homeless for free near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. I was in their shoes. I know how
00:11they feel. They're not bad people. They're not. They're human just like us. And so I said, you
00:15know what? Maybe a haircut could give them that spark to change their whole life. Hailing from
00:20Albuquerque, New Mexico, the 35-year-old former barbershop owner came to California to escape 15
00:26years of drug and alcohol addiction and to start a new life after getting sober in February.
00:32Part of Gabaldon's mission is to change the narrative surrounding the unhoused as President
00:37Donald Trump intensifies his law and order crackdown. It's becoming a situation of complete and total
00:43lawlessness. Trump's federal law enforcement intervention in Washington, D.C. includes
00:48clearing homeless encampments, and he has suggested he may deploy similar strategies to other major
00:54cities. When it comes to what they're doing with the law, you're going to put them away like
00:59they do in jail when they go jail for nine months or a year. But how are they going to enter the
01:04community again? They have nowhere to go. They have no shelter. They have no start. I think that's
01:10and that's why that's my goal to get some kind of mentorship to help these guys and somebody they
01:17can trust. Gabaldon sees the free haircuts not only as a way to redeem himself, but to give hope to
01:23others. I'm going to make sure I do it until they tell me I can't. And I mean, there's nothing wrong
01:28with what I do. I don't see them stopping me.
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