LAND POOR

For the last 18 years I have been a renter in the Los Angeles area. In the beginning I had too little income to even consider buying a house, even though a two-bedroom could be purchased for $20,000. Within a few years I realized that home ownership was simply not to be because of escalating real estate prices.

Like some of my friends, I plan to leave the state eventually and buy my first home somewhere else. That means some other state will benefit from added construction jobs and property taxes. For many of us, a house has always been just a roof over our heads, not something to make a buck off of. The bill for all those years of greed has finally come due.

TERESA EIDENBOCK

Pasadena