Low-Cost Housing Solutions Available
* On Dec. 19 there were three separate stories dealing with the high cost of housing and the poor immigrants who are being deprived of a decent place to live.
You chronicle the lives of these poor immigrant families and want us to feel sorry for them. Why should we? No one forced these people to leave their homeland and come to America; no one held a gun to their heads and said, “Go north to Orange County.”
Most, if not all, of these people already had friends and family living in somewhere in the United States, and most probably in Los Angeles and Orange counties before they decided to come here.
They either had prior knowledge or could have obtained prior knowledge of the lack of appropriate housing and the high cost of that housing before coming here. Just like those of use who may be working for a large company in the East and have been offered a transfer to the West Coast, we investigate and communicate before accepting the transfer. If it isn’t economically feasible we stay put.
Furthermore, not one of your three articles discusses the living conditions these people left behind and compares that to what they currently have.
I have been to Mexico many times and have seen families of eight or more living in one room with no electricity or running water and no indoor plumbing.
Yes, these people are poor and they are having a hard time finding rentals that one family can afford, so they double up. But that is probably the norm for these people.
Also, did you bother to ask how much money these immigrants are still sending home to their families in Mexico and Central America? I think you will find that no matter how little these poor people have, they still manage to send money home to their families, whom they consider less fortunate than themselves.
There may be solutions to the high cost of homes and apartments in Orange County. First, there are thousands of apartments in Riverside County that rent for one-third to one-half of the rents in Orange County. Without traffic, they are only 30 minutes away by car.
Second, why don’t any of our builders in Orange County build duplexes like we used to have in years past? A home buyer could live in one unit and rent the other, helping to pay his mortgage and providing a rental at the same time.
BOB GREENSPAN
Orange
* Your articles on affordable housing brought to mind a long talk my wife had many years ago with William L. Pereira, a noted Los Angeles architect and master planner.
He had been hired by Donald Bren to develop a master plan for Irvine, which was then still in its earliest stages.
As I recall, Pereira even then recognized the important need for low-cost housing to be a part of that master plan. According to his remarks at that time, he had provided for it.
He said he was disappointed that Bren had failed to include low-cost housing as a part of the final plans.
In reading The Times’ heavily researched article that dealt with with the struggle that not only lower-income groups, but also middle-class ones, are having on a daily basis, even [Pereira] didn’t know at that time how important his request for low-cost housing would become.
Bren has been reported as having billions of dollars in assets and recently announced several gifts to the UC Irvine.
Based on the desperate straits that so many families are having with housing here, it is high time that he rethink his original course regarding public housing.
JERRY MAUTNER
Laguna Woods
* After reading the “High Cost of Living in O.C.,” I was astonished.
So these are the ridiculous extremes some people are willing to go through in refusing to reconcile desire with the reality of finding affordable housing.
I’m sure there are some people who have valid reasons for being where they are. But for the rest, I have little sympathy for the ridiculous and irresponsible situations they’re putting themselves and their children in.
They could find jobs elsewhere or commute from more affordable environs. Planning smaller families they can support is also an option.
ANTHONY LEACH
Long Beach
