Pay For A New Stadium? Or Shelter The Homeless?

$100 million would pay for a lot of tent sites for the homeless to put their tents and have access to the basics: water, toilet, garbage bin. Or should we use that money for a stadium? Our community is like our family. What would be the healthiest thing to do for our community/family?

It’s like asking a family, shall we buy a leisure trip for just the parents to go and enjoy themselves every year (even though their children have no safe home to sleep in or access to a toilet and water), or buy a home for our children with water, garbage and a bathroom? Common sense isn’t it? There must be a disconnect in our community to the homeless and their needs.

Gerilyn Van
Eugene

Editor’s note: This is an excellent philosophical question, but Lane County taxpayers won’t automatically have $100 million to spend on the homeless if the stadium isn’t built. Some of the stadium cost would be paid by the Ems, and other money would come from the hotel tax, which legally can only be spent on tourism.

See more letters about the proposed baseball stadium online at EugeneWeekly.com.

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

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