Spend money on resources for Baltimore kids

Money alone can’t solve Baltimore’s problems. It takes everyone to get involved and keep kids in school to get an education and the social tools to be successful in life.

I read today that the city is starting a pilot program to pay 200 parents $1,000 per month to see if this is a doable idea to help parents with their children (“Baltimore to provide monthly income of $1,000 for 200 young parents through pilot program,” April 21). Let’s look into it a little further.

Financially this will cost city taxpayers $200,000 per month, or $2.4 million per year. There are tens of thousands of parents in Baltimore who could apply for this benefit. My next question has to be: Who does Mr. Scott believe is going to pay for this?

He could build recreation centers to give the kids a safe place to go that has counseling if they need to talk to someone for advice, and a computer annex that had free training, and if you have day care at the center that will help those same parents even more. Think of all the drug treatment beds that are so badly needed now. This will be a start to attacking the major root cause of the majority of neighborhood decay.

That money could go to a program to help monitor our kids and keep the kids in school so they get an education and escape becominge part of a continuing problem that no one can seem to get under control.

Hire male monitors for every classroom that can act as a role model for kids to look up to and talk about their concerns with.

Kids need more than money thrown at a situation, they need role models and safe places they can go.

Stop with the Band-Aids already and get together and figure out a way to get young 14- and 15-year-old kids off the streets committing street robberies and carjackings.

Money alone can’t solve Baltimore’s problems. It takes everyone to get involved and keep kids in school to get an education and the social tools to be successful in life.