Letter to the editor: Homelessness a problem long before COVID-19 -

Dear Editor, I am writing in response to the January 15, 2021 article on homelessness. Homelessness has been a problem since long before COVID. COVID made these problems much worse. The City’s response has been woefully inadequate.

Early in the pandemic, the City locked the doors to the park restrooms. They did quickly provided a couple of porta-potties. They promptly provided a couple of porta-potties but failed to reach out to the county when it began providing facilities to Cities until local advocates, including Concord Communities Alliance (CCA), started to call and email councilmembers.

They do only move the homeless along when they present a danger or break a law. Sometimes the broken law is camping in the park. They can be displaced for being homeless. Other times, law enforcement makes little effort to identify individual problems and moves entire camps rather than investigate as they would any other community that had members breaking the law. Calling in CORE is not much help if they have no services to provide.

Judi Herman

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Tags: homelessness, Letter to the Editor