A rehabilitated barber spreads hope, one cut at a time

Bangkok Post Group

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.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended