OPINION:
With its frayed and failing social safety-net programs, America is generally a cruel place to live if you’re homeless and/or mentally ill. However, in one strange sense we are exceedingly generous, for over the decades we have inexplicably decided to cede our cities’ public spaces to the destitute and the damaged (“CDC extends eviction moratorium for another 30 days,” Web, June 24).
And so we go about our business as our hapless fellow citizens beg, rant, urinate and use drugs in our parks, sidewalks, shop doorways and so on. Being mostly good liberals — and I include myself here — we urban dwellers are loathe to complain about such things for fear of being labeled hard-hearted and intolerant, but quietly we seethe as we watch the slow-motion degradation around us.
As encampments spring up on streets throughout Washington, we’d do well to look to places such as Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and New York, which have utterly failed their homeless populations. We must consider how to better balance the needs of the many with those of the few.
CHRIS HENNEMEYER
Washington
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