Overcrowding Cause for Concern

The editorial “Ill-Advised Overcrowding Ordinance” (Aug. 11) is just as insensitive to the problems caused by overcrowding as those it accuses who would “displace the poor.” There are many cities contemplating occupancy ordinances other than Santa Ana and Dana Point. Are they ill-advised too or might there be some legitimate reason for their concerns?

I submit that the consideration of occupancy ordinances is an attempt to deal with overcrowding, which is the root cause of the “slum pockets” developing in many cities. If the residents never came outside the door, it might not be a problem as to how many were inside.

But the truth is that overcrowding trashes a neighborhood. How can that be? Well, first with too many people, there are too many cars and thus no place to park. Those who don’t drive steal the market baskets to transport their shopping purchases. Only petty theft you say, but then they dump the basket out in front of the residence until the market basket truck comes by every day. People who live in those kinds of slum conditions are not too careful where they throw trash either.

Now, with that many people inside the residence, the socializing has to be done outside. Do you have any idea how intimidating it can be to have eight or 10 males drinking beer out in front just “having a good time.” We have elderly people who are afraid to come out their front doors, and no woman would be caught dead walking the sidewalk.

It is an established fact that crime statistics in these overcrowded slum pockets are the highest in town, by far, and the litany of problems goes on and on. And where do most of the problems stem from? Overcrowding.

Now is it unreasonable or arbitrary to want to clean up these overcrowded slum areas? The editorial suggests that the Uniform Housing Code adequately deals with overcrowding and that public health and safety require limits. Do you realize that those limits would permit eight people in a 450-square-foot one-bedroom apartment and that the average size two-bedroom apartment could “legally” have 15 to 18 people? Do you wonder why the cities are not practicing wise restraint?

Why does an attempt to clean up a city’s slum pockets have to be construed as an attempt to displace the poor anyway? We don’t care whether an apartment has rich or poor people inside or whether they are white or black. What we do care about is how many there are.

DICK MACKAIG, Dana Point