To the Editor:
Re “A Life Without a Home” (Sunday Opinion, Feb. 25):
When was the last time you heard a politician, any politician, make a speech about solving homelessness?
When was the last time any of us, regardless of our ideological stance in this politically supercharged time, have had an impassioned discussion about homelessness?
When was the last time we as a country were willing to spend on our homeless even a fraction of the billions we commit to everything from sports and entertainment to defense?
How many times in each of our lives — how many times? — have we turned away from looking at or engaging in any way with a homeless person?
Centuries from now, historians, social scientists, anthropologists, theologians and scholars of every stripe will vainly struggle to understand how the richest, most advanced civilization in the history of the world did not come to the aid of its homeless.
This special Opinion section dedicated to the homeless gives them an identity, and reminds us that they have worth and hopes and dreams, too. It should be reprinted and required reading for every member of Congress, in every church, in every school, and in every home of those of us lucky enough to have one.
Of all the searing images and heartbreaking stories, the response by two homeless little girls to your question “What would you do if you were in charge?” cuts to the quick.
Faith, 8, draws a house framed by tall green trees as smoke rises from the chimney under a golden sky, and her 9-year-old sister, Layla, provides a meticulously printed response: “Tell people what to do, and help homeless, and help people.”
Two little girls forced to sleep on couches with their mother understand what can and should be done. Why can’t we?
Greg Joseph
Sun City, Ariz.
To the Editor:
Yes, far too many of our fellow citizens are homeless. If and when they finally get a roof over their heads, it’s great. But here’s the thing: They get to their new place and plop their backpacks on the floor, where they will now sleep, using their backpacks as pillows.
That’s also where they’ll eat whatever meals they’re able to prepare without cooking implements or plates. That’s also where kids will do homework. No beds, no blankets, no towels, no chairs, no table, no forks and knives.
Is that really a home?
There are few government or social service programs to provide furniture and household goods for people transitioning out of homelessness. It’s left up to nonprofits like ours, Welcoming Home, to fill that huge gap.
What’s more, organizations like ours usually don’t even qualify for most grants or foundations that target homelessness. Why? Because once the unhoused have a roof over their heads, they are no longer homeless.
The homeless are precarious in terms of being able to assimilate into the world of the housed and stay there. What’s needed is funding to turn roofs over heads into furnished homes, giving these folks the sense of dignity and self-respect needed to ace a job interview, nail a homework assignment, complete a successful college application, and just get through life, like the rest of us.
Marsha Roberts
San Rafael, Calif.
The writer is the president and founder of Welcoming Home.
To the Editor:
Stories about homeless families in the Sunday Opinion section hit hard. I volunteered for seven years as a pet therapist with my adopted dog, Luke. We visited children in a family shelter. My dog brought a little cheer to bewildered children.
Since 2017 I have helped serve a meal once a month to homeless guests. I fret that one day I may be one of those guests. I am old and low-income and pay half my Social Security in rent. Yet we have billions to wage war, favor corporations and reward the affluent through tax breaks.
The United States should be ashamed that so many people are without homes.
Debra J. White
Gilbert, Ariz.
For Chefs, Rewards as Well as Challenges
To the Editor:
Re “30 Chefs, Unfiltered” (Food, Feb. 28):
I have been in the restaurant industry my whole life and can affirm that the experiences these chefs are describing are real, but they don’t tell the whole story. What makes the hard days worth it are the days when we hire someone who didn’t think they would ever have the dignity of having a job again or the days when we see a team member who had been struggling with a new skill begin to gain confidence.
The hard days are worth it when a recent veteran finds the community working in our restaurant that he feared he would never have outside the military.
This year, one in 10 Americans are working in the restaurant industry, where they find flexible schedules, training and skills they can take anywhere, and the sense of community that the hospitality industry can provide.
We expect the hard days, and like the guests gathering in our restaurants, we know that a good meal around a table with friends and family can make any celebration sweeter and lessen the sting of the inevitable hard days. It is being part of guests’ and colleagues’ lives that motivates us to keep serving.
Jeff Lobdell
Grand Rapids, Mich.
The writer is president of Restaurant Partners Management and chair of the National Restaurant Association.
To the Editor:
When I was a child, I dreamed of being a chef and owning my own restaurant. As a successful young restaurateur today, I can assure you that the rewards far outweigh the risks and wanted to provide another perspective to your article.
While slim margins and too few people in the work force do keep us up some nights, we chefs and restaurateurs have dream jobs, in my opinion. We get to innovate and create, introducing new flavors and ideas to our customers, who enjoy tasting and trying everything we dream up. We get to teach and mentor, artfully showing the next generation of America’s culinary talent how to succeed.
I hope more people can see the brighter side of our wonderful industry — I know I certainly do.
Eric Rivera
Montgomery, Ala.
The writer is executive chef at Vintage Hospitality Group and teaches at the Horst Schulze School of Hospitality Management, Auburn University.
Atoning for Past Horrors
To the Editor:
Re “With a New Holocaust Museum, the Netherlands Faces Its Past” (news article, nytimes.com, March 5):
I applaud the Netherlands for taking the hard road in building the National Holocaust Museum in an effort to document the role of the Nazis and the Dutch in the deportation of 75 percent of the country’s Jews to concentration camps, the highest rate in Western Europe.
By creating an oasis of truth and study, the Dutch can learn what happened and why, and try to avoid repeating the horrors of our past.
The courage shown by the Netherlands should prod other countries to own up to past horrors and, in doing so, to make for a better future, where we are not judged by the worst thing we have ever done. For example, the United States, for its centuries of slavery, and the Vatican, for its clerical abuse of its most vulnerable, should look to the Dutch for strength and guidance.
Ted Gallagher
New York