Homeless shelters

To the Editor:

Not even four months homeless and I've already experienced the full spectrum of human response: compassion, kindness, understanding, empathy, encouragement, sympathy, patience, mercy, pity, disbelief, dismay, disapproval, disgust, scorn, scapegoating, dehumanization, and outright bigotry. As history has taught us, the former can unite differing people, but the latter will unify an existing group against those who are different.

So what can be done for the homeless given the spectrum of support runs from hope to animus? For one, don't waste limited resources. In my opinion, building what amounts to apartments is inefficient given the sheer volume of homeless people. Overhead cover is by far more important than the semblance of normalcy. What the homeless need is shade from the sun and to stay dry during precipitation events. A linear structure with divided sections would provide adequate ventilation during warmer weather, while closing doors at either end of those breezeways and utilizing wood burning stoves would counter cooler climates.

Again, I am suggesting help for as many as possible through basic shelter that offers reprieve from the more immediate aspects of mother nature. Such facilities could save lives and perhaps even calm critics. Gov. Newsom's administration is predicting a multibillion dollar budget surplus… Imagine what we could do for the homeless in California if we have a viable plan and a fair percentage of that money?

If we were the society we aspire to on paper, this conversation wouldn't be necessary. If we continue to capitulate to an unfair hierarchy, we literally condemn thousands to unnecessary suffering. We, not just as a nation but as the human species, must accept our history is a lesson in abject failure to our ongoing future. We must reverse this course and place humane ideals above all else, lest the world grow ever more cruel. Kenneth Henry Deome

Somewhere in Sonora