Homeless Dilemma

I am sorry, but I cannot make head nor tail of this article. I see no solutions proposed anywhere within this dissertation.

Although I am technically homeless, I do not find myself described under any of Johnston’s categories.

Johnston says, “If we define the problem as a lack of homes. . . .” It may not be altogether a lack of homes. Primarily, it is the sky-rocketing cost of housing, which has soared into the stratosphere even for those of us who are American citizens, and for those of us who have worked all of our lives! Why? The law of supply and demand is supposed to regulate these things, except that we are living in a world where all the old rules have been smashed to smithereens!

Am I a have-not? I was a working American. And I am not just “temporarily derailed.” I have retired, so my predicament is very likely to be permanent. I thought that I had planned for my retirement, and that the time had come when I could afford to turn the reins over to a younger generation. What a shock to find that “affordable housing” means not “living modestly,” but rather living in a slum in a high-crime area!

I fail to see how any of this relates to the “quality, value and convenience,” or to the efficiency of the McDonald’s chain or Nordstrom’s Department Stores.

“Clustering services” and “packaging services” tailored to each individual’s needs just sounds to me like more of the same old thing, only more so--a gargantuan bureaucracy!--where 85% of the tax dollars can go, as usual, not to the people who need it, but to the administrators.

Who says we can’t get many of these people off the streets and into homes by next winter? It only takes two or three months to build a house!

ROSALIND WARNER

Newport Beach