Editor:
Homeless people have a life expectancy 25 years less than the rest of us.
Those shortened lives are necessarily consumed with survival: finding or maintaining a place to sleep (or even sit!) which is not discovered by the police, shuffling through free meal lines, scavenging surreptitiously for food. No time to contemplate the miracle of existence.
Statistically, 30 percent of homeless people have mental problems. Fifty percent have substance abuse problems. A full 85 percent have to deal with all the paraphernalia of a chronic disease.
“Reentry” programs are austere and cheerless. “Are there no prisons? No workhouses?” asks Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol. “Many can’t go there, and many would rather die,” responds the philanthropist.
“They had better do it then, and reduce the surplus population,” returns Scrooge.
That is exactly what is happening in the Eureka of the 21st century. I visited some camps in a recent storm, and there will be deaths before the winter is over.
Maybe the NCJ readership is tired of reading about this abomination, which could so easily be resolved with a little warm-hearted cooperation between Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives and the grim city council.
Nevertheless, it deserved at least passing mention in an issue devoted to “Health and Wellness” (Jan. 19).
Ellen Taylor, Petrolia
This article appears in On the March.
While this is an excellent letter there is one thing I question and that is why is it that the full pressure is always on the city of Eureka? Homelessness is a county-wide issue so why is it not addressed as such? Why are the Board of Supervisors not up against the wall on this issue. They have refused to declare an emergency, they have, in fact, done next to nothing. In addition to the fact that they should be addressing homelessness in county areas they should be pressured to help incorporated areas, especially those most heavily impacted such as Eureka, to deal with it.
Eureka shares in neglecting its legal responsibilities, just as the county has neglected theirs.
Instead of identifying a sanctioned area for the 1% of Eureka’s population that is homeless, as they are required to do, they passed a draconian homeless ordinance, nudity ordinance, and nuisance ordinance further destabilizing the weakest members of our community.
Like Eureka’s city council, the H.C. supervisors already know they have a legal obligation to address homelessness. This majority of “Little Trumps” are waiting to be sued.
It’s not their money.
Every caring member of this county should be laser-focused on electing and maintaining a progressive supervisor majority in 2018 and 2020.