Yes, It’s Time To Really Help The Homeless

Shannon Wilson’s recent plea about local action on the housing crisis (“Building a Luxury Hotel While People Sleep in the Streets,” Letters 4/8) comes at the right time and sets a good example. This is a time where America is clearly faced with a fork in the road: equity, or the status quo that leaves the majority of Americans behind. With 10 million Americans paying over 50 percent of their income for housing, the increasing number of hungry, homeless and the unemployed, it is time for this critical choice.

The recent COVID relief bill began the road to equity, but most of the bill is temporary. The increase in the child and earned income tax credits alone could cut child poverty in half, if made permanent. So use your voices, a privilege in our democracy, to write, call and virtually visit your members of Congress, calling on them to make these tax credit increases permanent and pass new housing legislation and other bills to help our country travel the road to equity. Then follow up, follow up, follow up.

If we stay silent, the choice will be made without us, most likely continuing the status quo.

Willie Dickerson

Snohomish, Washington