Homeless

It is often instructive to hear the views of an outside party in order to gain some perspective on a problem which, because of its familiarity, has become virtually invisible to those whom it should concern most. Dr. Suresh Vidya’s comments regarding the homeless (letter, April 7) should, therefore, be taken very seriously. After an absence of 10 years, the doctor was shocked to see the apparent decline in our standard of living in such a short time. What, the doctor asks, has happened here in the last 10 years?

What indeed? Could the systematic gutting of social programs to fund an increasingly voracious and monstrously inefficient military be at fault? Could a steady diet of propaganda about welfare queens in Cadillacs and the virtues of self-reliance have something to do with it? Perhaps the explosion of cocaine abuse and the coddling of drug lords to facilitate misguided foreign-policy objectives had some kind of impact? Has the utter failure of the private sector, in the absence of any federal help, to provide decent, affordable housing been a factor?

In short, Dr. Vidya, Ronald Reagan happened to this country.

JIM WARD

Van Nuys