Letters to the Editor: It’s a travesty to evict seniors into homelessness for profit

To the editor: I could not even read the entire article on fixed-income seniors facing eviction and even homelessness without shedding tears.

I despair that we allow this to happen, that this is legal, that greed wins over decency, that developers lobby our representatives and no one repeals the Ellis Act and Costa Hawkins Act that help to allow this.

The few stories of homes being built to house homeless people are juxtaposed with reports on more rules against sleeping in the streets and more luxury housing being built. Little wonder that our homeless population continues to increase.

And, all we hear are excuses.

Leda Shapiro, Sherman Oaks

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To the editor: Since when did it become the responsibility of people who own income property to subsidize low-income housing?

The state of California gave no thought to people living on fixed incomes when they arbitrarily raised that gas tax supposedly to repair our infrastructure. Why should a property owner care any more than our politicians?

The property owner has to maintain insurance, pay fees to register the units, pay for code compliance inspections and make repairs mandated by those inspections, pay for utilities (water at the very least), pay ever-increasing property taxes and make occasional plumbing and electrical repairs.

Maybe a better use of Measure H and Proposition HHH money for housing and services would be to make up the difference between the ridiculously low $400 per month paid by one elderly renter in this article and fair market rent, and thus keep him from becoming homeless.

I own three apartment buildings, and I did not invest in them to supply low-income housing units but, rather, to make income. Thus, “income property.”

Jim Kussman, Glendale