One woman’s fight against foreclosure; helping L.A. chronic homeless population; our community college system

Foreclosure battle

Re “Fighting her parents’ foreclosure in court,” Aug. 5

It’s not often that something truly inspirational appears in the news these days, but the dedication and abilities of Zeenat Ali — the former medical student who has singlehandedly fought Deutsche Bank to save her parents’ Diamond Bar home from foreclosure — have restored an exhilaration not felt in years.

Brava, Zee! The law may not necessarily be on your (moral) side, but you’ll always inspire us by doing what is right.

Anthony Pereslete

Culver City

The Times runs another in the Mortgage Meltdown series of articles, and the theme is familiar: “Courageous underdog homeowner fights merciless dishonest megabank.”

These stories make passable human-interest reading, especially if the protagonist is an immigrant and the villain is a foreign bank.

But once the human-interest element is stripped away, the stories in this series have a common, if less sympathetic, underlying theme: “Homeowners assume huge financial risk by overleveraging their home because (fill in the reason), and lose everything when the bet goes bad.”

If our government decides to bail these people out with Americans’ tax dollars, maybe The Times can do a new series with this theme: “Prudent middle-class homeowners honoring their mortgage contracts must now sell their homes to pay new taxes.”

Rick Reeves

Santa Barbara

The price of homelessness

Re “Antonovich objects to skid row Project 50,” Aug. 4

Thank goodness there is one supervisor who can see the emperor has no clothes.

Mike Antonovich’s concerns over Project 50 should be echoed by every taxpayer in this state. The idea of taking my money and trying to persuade the 50 most disabled people in our society to take it is appalling. This misguided crusade seems to be more about meeting the emotional needs of aid workers than actually helping people. Would these people suggest spending all of our education dollars on the 50 kids who are abusing the system the most at the expense of other kids who are trying?

If you want to make a difference, start with the people who want help. They will use it. Even better, let me keep my money and I will choose the people I want to help. Project 50 is just the kind of ridiculous program that makes people despise paying taxes.

Matt Duggan

Long Beach

It is easy to get distracted by side issues and forget the most important thing about permanent supportive housing and Project 50 — it has been the single most successful and cost-effective strategy to end chronic homelessness in the history of Los Angeles.

Project 50 picked the homeless people who had had the least success under all the conventional interventions. After two years, 84% are permanently housed and receiving services. And to top it off, Project 50 costs the county less than leaving people on the street. Recent cost studies in L.A. show that when left on the street, people who are chronically homeless cost the county more than $8,000 a month in emergency health, policing and other services. When placed in permanent supportive housing, the county saves more than $5,700 a month a person.

The most expensive homelessness strategy is leaving people on the street. The most humane and cost-effective strategy is permanent supportive housing.

Greg Spiegel

Los Angeles

The writer is director of public policy and communications, Inner City Law Center.

It’s not easy for college students

Re “Navigating the college maze,” Editorial, Aug. 2

Bills by legislators Alex Padilla (D- Pacoima) and Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) are indeed a positive step toward a simpler, more cost-effective college transfer system. However, more could be done. The century-old community college mandate allowing for unlimited access should be modified.

Many students entering community colleges made ill-planned or last-minute decisions to start college, and arrive with insufficient high school preparation. Both the UC and CSU systems have minimum high school course requirements. It is long past time for a statewide minimum for community college entrance.

Scaled down from the four-year institutions’ requirements and phased in, such a list could include one each of college prep English, pre-algebra and a general science course. Of course, existing high school graduates would be exempt. Such a system would save students, community colleges and taxpayers time and money.

William F. King

Upland

Your editorial on community colleges was a reasonable and helpful suggestion to help kids make it through college.

For 30 years as a public high school teacher in L.A., I told my students that California had a great community college system and that they could persevere and earn a four-year degree even if they couldn’t afford a university at first.

Not until my own daughter went to community college did I learn how hard it is to get an associate degree, much less transfer to a university. My daughter has attended three junior colleges in the last two years, and this September will go to a fourth campus, all because the classes she needs to be a nurse are so difficult to enroll in. It’s taken three years just to pass the prerequisites to transfer later to the nursing program. With budget cuts and huge student populations, classes are constantly being cut and counselors are few and impossible to see.

When I moved to California in the 1970s, higher education was affordable and excellent. What happened?

Cheryl Clark

Long Beach

Double standard on Israel

Re “Israel to deport children of some migrant workers,” Aug. 2

Your headline is misleading, because the children are being deported with their parents. Would you suggest that the children should remain while their parents are deported?

Why is Israel singled out for review? How about a table comparing its handling of illegal immigrants with other countries in the region — or for that matter, other countries around the world. What about the policies of the Mexican, Egyptian, Iranian and Saudi Arabian governments? This could be very enlightening. Why is there a double standard for Israel?

The headline also doesn’t mention that a number of the families (and children) are allowed to stay, as noted in your article.

Mark Reichard

Torrance

Atheism as an alternative

Re “Keeping the faith despite Anne Rice,” Opinion, Aug. 4

Tim Rutten is a very sensitive, humanitarian-minded writer. I appreciate his attempt, in his column about novelist Anne Rice’s decision to walk away from the Catholic Church, to salvage some value in organized religion. However, the very contradictions that he admits afflict religion seem to motivate him to continue to see religion as viable. Unfortunately, this is not a sound position.

We atheists do not reject religion out of spite. We do so out of a carefully considered amalgam of philosophy and science. If our world is governed by an all-powerful, all-good and all-knowing deity, this being would not be represented on Earth by such defective institutions.

Such an all-powerful being that wants us to know His/Her/Its will, and to be clear about what is expected of us, would not manifest through religions replete with all the prejudices and injustices that Rutten himself acknowledges.

Tim, we secular humanists would be honored to have you in our ranks.

Edward Tabash

Beverly Hills

The writer is chair, Center for Inquiry, Los Angeles.