Letters to the editor for Sept. 22
Stop bad growth
Look around today at the exploding population in Thurston County. What is happening is the same thing that was happening 20 years ago when I was on the Lacey City Council: out-of-control, unpaid-for growth.
What does that mean? That developers still swoop in, make huge profits, then leave the mess for current residents to pay for everything new residents need. What do these new people need? Fire protection, police protection, road and infrastructure expansion, sewer expansion, social services, schools, water delivery from shrinking aquifers. That is just a small sample of what is needed to support the massive growth we are experiencing.
Of course our natural and man-made environment continues it’s downhill slide. Rather then keep up with necessary infrastructure and environmental protection, we simply are allowing our quality of life and levels of service to decline and degrade.
What is the solution? “Full” impact fees on new development and state funding to pay for all the services and environmental protection needed to support that growth. Stop never-ending tax increases on current residents!
I go over the new interchange at Hawks Prairie and sometimes it takes four light changes to get through. If this happens once, it is considered an F-rated intersection. This is what I mean. What we need today is a new crop of local elected officials who understand the dynamics of growth, and how to mitigate the damage to our quality of life. The alternative is more of the same.
Jim Weber, Lacey
Disability income won’t pay rent
Robert Vanderpool’s excellent Sept. 15 letter on the need for low-income housing is right on, but misses an even more vulnerable population: people on Social Security Disability or other SSI programs.
As a SideWalk volunteer, half the unhoused I interview get SSDI/SSI, and none can afford housing once they lose it. A mom who stayed home until her kids were grown might get $900+/- that keeps her housed with a partner, but if that relationship ends, she becomes unhoused with few options.
Ten years ago, studios/rooms here were $300-$500, so SSDI of $700+/- gave people a chance. Today they get $790, studios start at $950, and are full.
We will not solve the homeless crisis until we find a way to house these people for what they can pay, or pay them what it costs to rent in this county.
Most of my SSI clients would leap at the chance to live at Plum Street Village in a heated, insulated, secure 90-square-foot tiny house with communal kitchen and amenities, but “we” have decided such housing can only be “transitional.”
If we are going to solve homelessness, we need to recognize we lack the resolve and/or resources to get everyone into a one-bedroom apartment.
At the moment, the enemy of the acceptable — as in acceptable to those who would occupy them — seems to be an unreachable ideal. Half a dozen Plum Street Village clones could move 200 happy citizens off the street, at a cost we could pay.
Warren Carlson, Olympia