GOP candidate Kashkari sleeps on streets for a week

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Is it a campaign stunt or a brilliant idea? Neel Kashkari, the Republican challenger to Governor Jerry Brown, spent a week on the streets living as a homeless person. Kashkari filmed his experience and says he's trying to prove a point

Neel Kashkari as you've never seen him before: Unshaven and unkempt, the Republican candidate for governor of California spent a week living on the streets of Fresno, sleeping on park benches and in parking lots.

Kashkari documented his experience in a 10-minute video posted on YouTube.com.

Speaking in Sacramento on Thursday, Kashkari said the point of the video is to shed light on the problems that continue to plague California's poor.

Kashkari is a former investment banker, a millionaire who lives in Newport Beach. In the race for governor, polls show he's trailing incumbent Jerry Brown by 20 to 30 points. But Kashkari says the week he spent on the streets of Fresno was not a political stunt.

But a filmmaker who has spent almost two years documenting the plight of the homeless on L.A.'s Skid Row, says Kashkari should have come there, the area known as the "homeless capital of the U.S."

Shanks Rajendran is the director of "Los Scandalous," a new documentary shot on the streets of Skid Row.

The controversial documentary focuses on the pitfalls facing the estimated 4,000 people who live in the infamous neighborhood on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles. Rajendran says Skid Row would have given Kashkari a much clearer understanding of the real issues facing the homeless.

Kashkari's campaign says the candidate is sympathetic to the struggles people face all over California. The Brown campaign did not respond to an Eyewitness News request for a comment on Kashkari's video.