Readers React: Building long-term housing isn’t enough. Homeless people need basic services now

To the editor: A United Nations observer recently condemned the deplorable conditions in which the homeless residents of Los Angeles live. (“Faced with complaints of filth and blight, L.A. cracks down on overnight RV parking. Now, the homeless are scrambling,” March 15)

These people, despite being city residents, have no potable water supply, no trash pickup, no bathroom facilities, no areas to charge cellphones critical to communication, few options for healthcare and fewer options (apparently) for police protection. Now those who take shelter in recreational vehicles are being forced to move around the city.

Planning only for “housing” for the next decade with inadequate attention to the current critical needs of those who “sleep out” or “live on the street” is blatant neglect of the elderly, the impoverished, the disabled, the ill, war veterans, children and mothers.

JoEllen Murata, Chatsworth

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To the editor: These RV dwellers have the right idea — carry your home with you — yet they get booted from their parking spots time and again by kick-the-can-down-the-road politicians.

Isn’t it obvious that land can be found for any number of RV parks that would provide utilities, community rooms, laundry facilities and cooking areas? Please don’t put these people into industrial areas and effectively out of sight. Instead, there can be rules for them about keeping areas neat and secure.

We have an abundance of design, planning and social service schools that need real-world projects for their students. If we want to provide a better environment for homeless residents, there are many opportunities to create them and probably reduce crime. Take advantage of the energy of activists to make a better world.

Glenn Wolf, Cathedral City

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To the editor: In the March 21 article, “Some OC residents: We want to help the homeless — just don’t put them in our neighborhoods,” Huntington Beach renter Mark Smith is quoted as saying: “Finally, the county is taking action — doling out this kind of money. But they must understand that they can use this money to go buy land elsewhere, maybe the Inland Empire, to relocate the homeless. We just can’t lower our housing values with this population nearby.”

As a Inland Empire homeowner of 16 years, as opposed to being merely a renter, I can say that we have our own homelessness situation to deal with. Perhaps Mr. Smith wouldn’t mind if we shipped all our homeless people to Orange County because “we just can’t lower our housing values with this population nearby.”

Orange County ought to deal with its own problems and not ship them elsewhere just because they impinge on the residents’ precious lifestyle.

John Zavesky, Riverside

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