Unfettered Letters

Sympathy for beggars

In response to Bill O’Brien’s letter (3/1,”KC must crack down on begging”) concerning Kansas City’s homeless population, I would like to say that we are all in this together.

As I read the letter to my family at the breakfast table, our jaws got closer to the floor with every talking-point stereotype put forth. I kept waiting for him to offer a solution that would help get people off the streets. Harassing the homeless with laws is so 20th century.

Mr. O’Brien may want to consider volunteering to work with the people he so easily dismisses. Once he got to know them, maybe he would be a little more connected to the world around him.

Barry Bernstein
Overland Park

My husband, who frequently travels through the Plaza, keeps a collection of $5 restaurant gift cards in his glove compartment. It is a win-win. The homeless person gets a good meal, and the business where the card was purchased makes some money.

Many of the homeless are mentally ill. It’s not a lifestyle most of them would have chosen. A little compassion would go a long way.

Patti Dickinson
Fairway

KC must crack down on begging

Kansas City needs to get real about the people who beg day after day at intersections, on the Plaza and on highway ramps. Beggars are often substance abusers who are frustrated that social service programs don’t provide alcohol or recreational drugs. Folks who give to the beggars, while good-hearted, provide money for either alcohol or drugs, fueling the substance-abuse problems.

Kansas City should pass laws prohibiting street begging. Beggars are a traffic hazard. Begging can cause accidents at traffic lights by distracting drivers.

Beggars hurt commerce, tourism and the reputation of the city. Tourists on the Country Club Plaza are scared by the unsavory characters begging at the intersections.

Instead of falling for their ruse and giving street beggars money, take what you would have given them and spend it at one of the struggling businesses in the city. For the greater good, give a struggling business owner a much-needed foothold in tough economic times.

Bill O’Brien
Kansas City

Homelessness and AIDS

The “As I See It” column “A critical connection between housing and health” is seriously flawed. The author writes: “The facts are indisputable. Homelessness and HIV/AIDS share a frighteningly causal relationship.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is caused by unprotected sex; not by homelessness. There may be a correlation of the two, but not a causal relationship. It is very important not to confuse causality and correlation. Homelessness does not cause HIV/AIDS.

Let’s say that single women with tattoos are more likely to be come pregnant that single women without tattoos. Does getting a tattoo cause pregnancy? Of course not! The column’s causality/correlation mistake does a great disservice to the readers.

Bob Gough
Lee’s Summit

Homeless people in Northland

Letter writers Sarah Cool (5/24) and Rita D. Pearce (5/26) are concerned about homeless men being removed from their camps in the Northland (5/19, A-1). Ms. Pearce says that “in her experience” these men are not a threat to public safety. How does she know? She states that many of them have mental problems, which can lead to substance abuse. Would she want these people living on her property if she had children or grandchildren who played where there may be a “camp?”

Ms. Cool, no, we do not think all homeless people are going to burglarize us, molest our children and wreak havoc in our neighborhoods, but one could. Do you want your house to be broken into or something to happen to your child or a neighbor’s child? These men are being removed from private property where they have set up “house.”

Ms. Cool, have you thought of rallying authorities, friends and neighbors to help start a shelter and a soup kitchen in Liberty? How many homeless people have you invited in for a meal “to get to know them,” and how big is the camp you have offered in your yard?

Roberta Mills
Kansas City

Helping homeless people’s pets

The facts about homelessness are scary. Our unstable economy has caused more people to become homeless. When they have a pet, it becomes harder to find shelter and pet food.

More than 10 percent of homeless people have at least one pet, and more than 25 percent of people living in poverty have a pet. Their pets are nonjudgmental, offer comfort, give unconditional love and provide an emotional bond of loyalty. In some cases, they provide the homeless person protection and warmth.

Rolling Acres Memorial Gardens for Pets is collecting pet food and delivering it to Uplift Organization, which has agreed to distribute the pet food to homeless and impoverished people. Rolling Acres is a member of Feeding Pets of the Homeless, a nonprofit member organization that provides pet food and veterinary care to homeless and less fortunate people in communities across the United States and Canada.

You can help by donating pet food at Rolling Acres Memorial Gardens. Call 816-891-8888 or go to www.petsofhomeless.org

Genevieve Frederick
Founder and executive director, Feeding Pets of the Homeless
Carson City, Nev.

Homeless people in Northland

The Northland Assistance Center in North Kansas City helps supply food and prescription needs to a clientele of approximately 15 homeless males, including Mike O’Brien, who is featured in The Star’s article (5/19, A-1, “Homeless people migrate to Northland”).It is my experience that these men are not a “threat to public safety” or a danger to children. Many of these individuals have mental health issues that combine with and lead to substance abuse and dropping out of society. Our clients will not seek shelter downtown. Even they are afraid of these shelters.

Rousting these individuals from their camps and destroying or confiscating what little property they have is not the solution.

I have witnessed the compassion of the Northland community. I hope leaders in the community work together with nonprofits and social-service agencies to provide shelter and adequate care for this growing population.

Rita D. Pearce
Executive director, Northland Assistance Center
North Kansas City

Homeless people in Northland

The article about homeless folks moving to the Northland to set up camps (5/19, A-1) disturbed me. We are more worried about property values than the well-being of our fellow humans?

We are so cold-hearted that we’d rather see cops arrest someone for camping out than offer a meal or a listening ear or a ride to a shelter or soup kitchen (neither of which exist in Liberty)? Do we think all homeless people are going to burglarize us, molest our children and wreak havoc in our neighborhoods?

How about, instead of arresting them and destroying their property, we invite homeless people to enjoy a meal with us, get to know them and figure out a way to make life better for them? Would we not want the same?

Because many of us live paycheck to paycheck, there are myriad reasons we could become homeless ourselves: job loss, illness, car problems or tragedy. Remember the Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated. Work toward restoring hope rather than tearing it down even further.

Our priorities are out of whack. We care more for possessions than people, which will lead to the demise of our community.

Sarah Cool
Liberty

Save the city jail

Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s suggestion that the city close the Municipal Correctional Institution is irresponsible. First, we are talking about people’s lives, not snow removal or animal shelters, yet Funkhouser talks about them in the same callous way.
Second, of the 8,000 persons a year who go through the jail, more than two-thirds of them are there because they were sentenced for committing serious offenses. These are not individuals we want on the street.
Third, 50 to 60 percent of the people at the jail have a mental illness and, if not for the facility, they would be homeless and would return to the lifestyle that got them there in the first place.
Last, closing the jail would add to the growing homeless population because the people will have no where to go except where most of them reside now, in the recently renovated area called the Power & Light District. I hope Kansas City citizens realize this will cost the city much more than $4.8 million.
Guyla Stidmon
Executive director, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Greater Kansas City

Sad stories

Talk about a way to ruin a sunny Saturday morning (1/12), a quick look the Local section.

Kyoung Lee murdered while desperately trying to earn enough money to get medical treatment for his 6-year-old son, treatment the boy should have received immediately.

Cynthia Larcom of the Homeless Coalition saying the new location of ReStart at 8th and Paseo “… is not that much farther of a walk” to Grace and Holy Trinity’s homeless lunch. Easy to say if you don’t have to do it. I see 13 extra blocks each way in a hostile environment.

Kansas City is not quite the “American Dream” of political rhetoric, is it?

Ann Straulman
Kansas City

City Union Mission nativity

City Union Mission is grateful for the front-page picture in the Friday (12/14) Local section of the live nativity portrayed by homeless clients. I just wanted to clarify that these homeless individuals truly wanted to be doing this — they were not “used” by City Union Mission, as the caption stated.

The sole desire of these men was to encourage those who passed by to remember the true meaning of the Christmas season.

Dan Doty
Executive director, City Union Mission
Kansas City