Homeless Lessons 

Editor:

The letter in last week's Journal by Rick Brennan ("The More Things Change," Nov. 12) was one of the ugliest I've ever seen in this paper. It was a bigoted rant and since most bigotry is based in ignorance I'd like to share some facts with Mr. Brennan. One in 15 Americans lives below the poverty level, 7.1 million of those are children. Twenty-five percent of U.S. jobs pay below the poverty level and yet Republicans have been trying for years to eliminate Social Security, which is all that keeps millions off the streets. You wouldn't happen to be a Republican, Mr. Brennan? There are 1,168,354 homeless kids in our schools. Shame on those "homeless/drunk/drug/crazy" kids for being homeless.

Living in poverty, sleeping under bushes, seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, can drive a person to drink, drugs or whatever can get you through another hopeless day. We are a society that leaves its mentally ill to wander the streets with little to no help with their pain and difficulties.

Poverty is growing worse daily while the rich get richer. The net worth of the Forbes 400 in 1989 was $455 million, in 2012 it was $2 trillion. The rich are getting richer by the day and they own the government and are making sure that poverty grows.

The truth is that it would cost society less to house, feed and help people to stabilize their lives than it does to leave them unaided. But this country has been built on economic inequity from its start and now the inequities have reached a zenith that threatens everything unless we the people demand to take our government back, that the rich pay taxes, workers get their fair share and end poverty and homelessness.

Did you learn anything, Brennan? Probably not.

—Sylvia De Rooy, Eureka