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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Republican candidate for California governor said Thursday he spent a week living as a homeless person in Fresno to highlight the disparity between the governor’s claim that the state is making an economic comeback and the reality faced by the working poor in the nation’s most populous state.

Neel Kashkari, a millionaire and former Goldman Sachs banker who is far behind Gov. Jerry Brown in pre-election polls, released a short documentary about the six nights he spent sleeping in parking lots and on park benches, and wrote about his experience in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal.

Kashkari, 41, said he had hoped to find work and stay in low-priced motels, but he was turned away from dozens of businesses where he offered to wash dishes, sweep floors, pack boxes and cook meals after taking a bus from Los Angeles to Fresno with $40 in his pocket. He eventually turned to a homeless shelter for food.

Kashkari acknowledged that his experiment gave him “just a taste” of the struggles faced by poor people and said he could not truly understand their plight because he knew his situation was only temporary.

Still, he said he wanted to force a discussion about poverty.

“Gov. Brown is not talking about poverty,” Kashkari said at a news conference outside a Sacramento food bank. “He’s not talking about unemployment in our state. He’s not talking about our failing schools. He’s declared a California comeback.”