Richard Gere thinks society is "too selfish".
Richard Gere
The 66-year-old actor features in a new documentary-style film about homelessness, titled 'Time Out of Mind', and thinks people should do more to help society's less fortunate.
He said: "Housing is the most important thing in bringing anyone back into society. It's that sense of self ... that I'lI exist and have some importance to people around me'. I'm saddened that we're all too selfish to help each other as much as we should."
The 'Pretty Woman' star said people are guilty of looking at homelessness in an overly-simplistic way.
The actor - who has worked on behalf of the homeless for more than 10 years - told the Observer newspaper: "I've been living in New York since I was 20. We all have our homeless people on our block. Then they disappear and who knows what happens to them. It's a wide variety of issues. It's not just mental illness ... But people tend to be seen monolithically.
"That's one of the failures of the social services, where people think one size fits all. There's an infinite number of stories that lead people to being on the street."
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