Supervisor Hopkins pushes for purchase….. “To house 31 individuals at the expense ($6.2 million to purchase and $4.6 million for 2 years operating) of potentially helping hundreds isn’t only fiscally unsound but ethically dubious.”
HIGH COST HOUSING, PD Letter to the Editor
EDITOR:
Being an emergency room nurse, I am quite familiar with and sympathetic to the plight of homeless people. I am wholly supportive of services to house and assist this vulnerable population, but the latest idea has me fuming. I’m speaking of the pending purchase of the Sebastopol Inn at $6.2 million, along with the estimated $4.6 million that it will cost to run for it’s first 2 years (“State awards county funding,” Nov. 25).
Our elected officials have completely overlooked their financial responsibilities to the taxpayers of Sonoma County and our homeless population.
The inn has just 31 rooms so with the given operating costs it will run $74,000 per person per year. This doesn’t even account for the initial purchase.
These numbers are ludicrous. The hundreds of local homeless people would be better served in safe, organized encampments on publicly owned land with sanitation, garbage, showers, security, onsite social services and even a roving weekly medical clinic.
What are they thinking? To house 31 individuals at the expense of potentially helping hundreds isn’t only fiscally unsound but ethically dubious.
B. P.
Sebastopol
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