Irvine’s Efforts to Aid Homeless

Nobody could be more well intentioned, or more misinformed, than Sylvia Easton as she pleads so eloquently for the homeless of Irvine from the lovely isolation of her Turtle Rock residence. Her letter (Sept. 20) fails to tell the reader that at this very time, the City of Irvine and the Irvine Temporary Housing Council are doing an admirable job of housing Irvine’s homeless in apartments and rooms scattered throughout the city where their privacy has been preserved.

Granted, they are serving only 50% of the need, but the answer to helping the unserved 80 homeless does not lie in housing them in an unused building of the Irvine Animal Shelter. At the present time, Mayor Larry Agran is pushing hard to place the unfortunate and poor, who have fallen on hard times, in an area of Irvine within 100 feet of the dog pound on Sand Canyon Road.

The proposed shelter for 50 people will act as a magnet for every unfortunate homeless person throughout the entire county. Irvine has an obligation to help its own, but not to shelter every vagrant in the county.

The answer does not lie in putting the needy into a communal warehouse. This invades the integrity of the family unit, exposes them to poor role models and makes them a public target for ridicule.

Other more humane and sensible solutions include expanding the present program, purchasing affordable condominiums (yes, there are some in Irvine) and promoting a more active involvement of the churches within the city to care for and help support those in need. No person deserves enforced cohabitation with the city’s abandoned animals.

ELINOR E. KNIFFIN

Irvine