Lane County is paying $750,000 for 1.3 acres of land on Franklin Blvd, for 147 units of low-income housing. Which is great! That’s $5,000 per unit, for the land cost. A total of 1.3 acres is 56,000 square feet of land.  So that’s an average of 385 square feet per household.

How about the city of Eugene budgets the first $750,000 of the construction excise tax and buy 1.3 acres somewhere central, on major bus lines, to provide 150 camp sites, each 385 square feet — that’s like 20-by-18 feet. That is freaking huge, epic-size campsites.

Better yet, subdivide the land into 385 square foot plots, and sell them to the homeless for $5,000.

Or better yet, allow the homeless to form land trusts and buy our own subdivisions down to 400 square feet that we can actually afford to buy someday — for $5,000 each.

Do you see what I’m saying? The homeless issue is really about the landless, who are being denied land — not even because it’s too expensive, but because of artificial and unjust land-use zoning.

Todd Boyle

Eugene