Naval Facilities for Homeless

I applaud your coverage of the outcry of nearly 2,000 residents of San Pedro against the reuse of Navy surplus housing as a homeless shelter (March 16). It is not popular to oppose helping the homeless. Your readers should realize that the San Pedro community already has four shelters within two miles of this proposed site. Our small bedroom community has more shelters than any other portion of Los Angeles. We also have more military housing areas that will be subject to the same McKinney Act, which favors homeless institutions above other applications for surplus land use. We are fighting to save our community, our property and our families’ safety.

We do not oppose helping the homeless. We do oppose being left out of the process to determine appropriate use of our neighboring land.

DANI SAYERS

San Pedro

Instead of turning over the naval housing on Terminal Island to the homeless, it should be turned over to low-income working families. The prime requisite being that they must be employed. Perhaps, after living there for a short while, they should also be given the opportunity to buy their unit as a condo or co-op. This will give the drug-free homeless the opportunity to take a low-paying job and still be able to put a decent roof over their families.

DAN DiLEO

Rancho Palos Verdes

I have a serious suggestion to offer to all those kindhearted, unselfish, farsighted, charitable citizen property owners and residents living in the vicinity of the abandoned Navy housing facility on Taper Avenue in San Pedro, who have once again stormed out of the safety of their homes to rally for a “good cause” and to protest the proposed conversion of the 27-acre site to a center for housing and job training for homeless people. According to the report the locals seem to fear a future unbridled invasion by homeless people if the project is successful and are united in their belief that their community has done all it can and should do to alleviate the homeless problem in San Pedro.

My fellow citizens, you seem to be very disturbed by the prospect of “homeless” living within view of you and your families, so what would you all think of this: Instead of the proposed housing-educational center, another more benign use be made of the site--a tastefully landscaped cemetery for deceased homeless persons.

FRED HUFFMAN

Los Angeles