Dear Editor,
Housing is the subject of this letter, specifically, adequate, clean, affordable housing, and here’s the question: Should a town have more places for people to live than it has people?
Or should it be the other way around, where there are people in a town who cannot find shelter and, necessarily, go homeless or try to find some way to move on?
If you think of housing as a commodity, then you agree with the first alternative, more demand for less supply keeps prices up.
That’s good for a few landlords, but hardly for the community as a whole.
A scarcity of housing inhibits a town’s growth. It’s bad for the future of everyone.
The elections are just over a month away, and there is only one candidate for the state legislature who has addressed the housing issue in the 112th District.
That’s Christina Stein. She not only has solid ideas to develop affordable housing in this area, she also has the energy, drive and determination to get it done. Her plans have been done successfully in thousands of towns across the U.S.A., and she can help do it here.
Housing is an issue close to my heart, I have to admit, for two basic reasons:
I’ve been searching for an affordable place to live in Great Bend since I came back home after being away for more than 40 years.
I’m on Social Security, and anybody who has looked for a place to live here can tell you about the same brick wall I’ve encountered: waiting lists which sometimes run into the hundreds.
And, I’m a vet. I served in the U.S.M.C. from 1965 to 1968, during the big Viet Nam build-up right through Tet, and that makes me part of a truly lousy statistic. Over 20 percent of all homeless in the U.S. are veterans.
Housing and veteran’s issues are only two of the areas Christina Stein is ready, willing and able to work on for the 112th.
And that’s just a couple of reasons why she will get my vote in November.
I hope you will consider giving her your vote too.
John Grow,
Great Bend