People don’t matter to city

The Spokesman-Review touts the city of Spokane’s “compassionate response” to homelessness by opening up shelters for the winter. And now the city is seeking $1.4 million to keep the shelters open this winter.

Yet the city has had no problem with the closure of the Otis and other downtown low-income housing; approving a mega-car wash that would have destroyed single-family housing had not Oak stepped in to have those houses moved to vacant lots in the West Central neighborhood.

And I just don’t understand how our poor and homeless are so disposable these days. “Poverty” is just not popular. Yet our “compassionate” city has no problem and seems lost in the irony of spending $64 million on a downtown park (50 years of keeping the shelters open) or $14 million on a bridge to nowhere.

Although I may be seen as beating a dead horse, I think it time that we as citizens of the city of Spokane and the United States stop ignoring the ever-widening income gap and the hopelessness of so many of our “neighbors.” Obviously we have the money for what we believe is important, and it is currently not people.

Louise Chadez

Spokane