Helping those without houses requires money

In Sunday’s editorial “Show Us the Bid: No Reason Remains to Keep Amazon Offer Hidden” (June 17), it was said matter of factly that Seattle City Council had a “misguided belief that the city could solve homelessness and an affordable housing crunch by throwing money at the problems.”

The reason people are homeless (or can’t afford housing) is that they do not have enough money. Throwing money at the problem is the most direct way to help the problem.

In his “War on Homelessness” bit, George Carlin said, “Change the name! It’s not homelessness, it’s houselessness! It’s houses these people need! A home is an abstract idea, a home is a setting, it’s a state of mind. These people need houses; physical, tangible structures.”

It seems to me that money would go directly to the heart of the problem.

Given the confidence of the proclamation that using money from huge corporations would not help this issue, maybe I’m wrong. But if the writer is so sure money won’t help, then please tell us what will. DAN RUEF

Greenfield director Keith Burris is very mistaken that Donald Trump is not the worst president we have ever had.

The state of our nation today requires criticism and requires humor. I only hope that when Mr. Trump’s tenure ends, we have enough of our once-proud nation left to repair. Now, in parallel, I hope the Post-Gazette opinion section will be worth reading once Mr. Burris gets done with it. BETTY HOLLINGSWORTH

Murrysville

In last Wednesday’s PG, the lead editorial referred to those who oppose President Donald Trump’s policies as “critics and haters” (June 13, “A North Korea Opening”). It’s true that we are critics. But we aren’t haters. The haters are the ones who marched last summer in Charlottesville, Va., the neo-Nazis and white supremacists, the ones the president referred to as “very fine people.” Those are the haters.

The Post-Gazette should bear in mind that criticizing the president and the party in power represents the highest form of patriotism. Calling it “hatred” represents the rhetoric of the far right, a realm of our national debate that the old Post-Gazette, that tolerant, sensible and progressive paper, never entered. That was a paper that would have viewed with alarm the rise topower of a corrupt demagogue like Donald Trump. Alas, how I missthat old paper.

The humorist Will Rogers once said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Donald Trump never met a foreign dictator he didn’t like. It’s fortunate for us we didn’t have someone like him running the country in the 1930s and 1940s during the rise of fascist dictators around the world. GORDON D. BLOOM Dormont