Is Homelessness the Cost of Living? 

Editor:

The reason for homelessness is clear to see, but no one wants to look ("Homing the Houseless," Feb. 25). Housing here is too ridiculously expensive for a place that has no economy. Unless you have skills or connections there are no jobs that pay enough to keep a roof over your head and you have to be a millionaire to get welfare in the USA now. If you're mentally ill, good luck. Or is it because watching the poor suffer makes people feel better about themselves that things go on this way?

Humboldt County is in a state of emergency, not because of the weather, but because the USA is now a third world country. Especially in the winter, the Muni or the Adorni Center, the Veteran's Building or some of the many vacant commercial buildings should be opened for homeless people. Let alone churches and temples. If the weather or an earthquake made people homeless, they'd be open for people.

Campsites, jail and tiny houses (substandard housing) are cruel solutions. The progressive, Christian state of Utah since 2009 has ended homelessness and is saving money at the same time by providing housing similar to Section 8 without a five-year waiting line.

I've been here since the '70s and wages have doubled since then, but housing has gone up tenfold! If you are not good at math, that's a lot more. There was plenty of poverty, but housing was cheap. The fish are gone and the big money trees are gone and the operations that remain are more mechanized and need fewer people.

Since the '80s the War on Poverty has turned into the War on Poor People. Maybe the poor just need grant writers? How about rent control? Ha ha. Just keep adding onto our debtor's prison (county jail), I guess.

Elliott Linn, Eureka