Re: “Supreme Court’s homelessness ruling punishes the most vulnerable” [July 1, Opinion]:
I’ve spent 5 years volunteering in a St. Vincent de Paul program working with Seattle Pacific College. We go to these dwelling in RVs all through the town and sometimes interact with these in tents.
The apply of utilizing legal guidelines with out adequate companies to resolve social issues has a protracted historical past of failure. If legal guidelines solved social issues, there wouldn’t be homelessness, drug dependancy or prostitution.
Forty years in the past (I’m a retired social employee), I used to be informed by an Orange County, Calif., sheriff’s deputy that there are not any homeless individuals in Orange County. When somebody is seen dwelling outside or panhandling, they get put within the patrol automotive and brought to the county line, set free and informed to maintain strolling — a easy resolution to homelessness in line with most present practices.
Holding those that are homeless “accountable” with legal guidelines is an admission of failure and a phony “feel-good” resolution that absolves officers from really addressing the issue.
Jerry Gunville, Seattle