Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. I live in Southern California and one of the things that I love about here is that we don't have real harsh winners and we don't have real hot summers.

It tends to be pretty mild throughout the year.

We don't get a lot of rain, it never snows here,

and the closer you get to the beach the milder the weather gets and the better the air quality is.

I think that's one of the reasons a lot of people move here and I think that's why a lot of people want to live here or

come here on vacation. It's just truly is a beautiful place to visit or live.

But perhaps one of the negative things about Southern California is the cost of living.

It's very expensive to live here.

So what happens is we have people that move here or live here and really are trying their best to make a living but they can't do it.

And they end up living on the street.

They're homeless.

And we have a lot of homeless people in Southern California, I think in part because they can live

here year-round even though it's hard.

Now some of the people are on the street because they're addicted to drugs or alcohol.

They're having a hard time getting by and the addiction is really consuming their life

and because of the addiction they can't work so they live on the street. Others though are living

like many of us paycheck for paycheck and they lose their job and then they're

living in their car or perhaps on the street.

It can happen to so many people, people that I've known that just got behind,

something happened in illness, a loss of a job, and very quickly, because they didn't have

the support network, they were living on the street.

Well, one thing that I do, and you may not agree with it, but one thing that I do pretty regularly, not all the time, but often, is when I see these people on the street and I can tell they're homeless or if they are asking me for money. I often will give them money or food.

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