Solution for shelter is safety

Posted

To the editor:

I agree that the Project Renewal Homeless Shelter should remain open (“Keep homeless shelter open,” May 7). The obvious solution to a dangerous shelter is not to close it to people who desperately need a place to stay. The solution is to make it safe.

Most homeless people are nothing more than victims of an economy that does not provide enough employment or provides too many jobs that don’t pay livable wages. Added to this are outrageously greedy, rentgouging landlords.

So good people who are victimized by out-of-control capitalism should be able to find an emergency shelter where they will not be assaulted, robbed, raped or murdered.

Those who are dangerously mentally ill should be hospitalized. The majority of mentally ill people who are not dangerous need help in a facility that does not leave them as prey to predators. Also, the appropriate housing for dangerous criminals already exists. It’s called prison.

West Spruill, the thug who murdered Ana Charle when she ran after he tried to rape her, should have been in prison. He served 11 years in state prison between 1994 and 2005 for attempted murder and assault.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read about a murder committed by someone who served time for attempted murder. The blatantly logical question is how come an attempt at a crime gets less of a sentence than its actual commission? Do the people who run our “justice” system and the legislators who make the laws believe that if you fail at murder, you should get a second shot at it?

Richard Warren

Project Renewal Shelter, homelessness, Richard Warren

Comments