‘Homeless Need More Than Lip Service’
The Times’s emphatic editorial that the “Homeless Need More Than Lip Service” (Orange County section, March 12) on the Orange County Grand Jury claim that “neither the public sector nor the private sector is keeping up with the fast-growing problem of homeless families in the county” deserves immediate attention in view of years of neglect throughout California, and indeed our nation.
Apparently Supervisor Roger R. Stanton has acted in suggesting a countywide pool using federal housing money. Of course, that approach is one of many, but it needs clear and immediate attention.
The county grand jury, as has the one in Los Angeles County, calls for county government to press for more attention to the ever-growing population of the homeless, and in particular homeless families. Children should not be innocent victims!
Private resources, it should be acknowledged, cannot provide what is needed. Of course, both private and public aid must play a part.
Only the recognition of a national emergency equivalent to a disaster, in word and deed, can partially alleviate the problem now beginning to be understood in this, the richest nation in the world.
It is 4 years since the Los Angeles County Countywide Interagency Committee, advisory to the Department of Health, called on the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to proclaim such a national emergency. We can do no less in Orange County!
H. ROGIE ROGOSIN
Laguna Hills
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