To the editor:

Within the vibrancy of our bustling community, there is a silent desperation that rarely surfaces. Only when one of these desperate human beings is found dead on our streets does the community learn or remember that there ARE homeless people wandering our streets, huddling in our parks or under our bridge whom even our Salvation Army has banished from their overnight shelter because of this disease of alcohol.

Many, in fact, are duo-diagnosed with mental anguish that the rest of us cannot even fathom. And so, they go on, alone, isolated, “self-medicating” themselves until one day, another human being is found lifeless on our streets, his/her journey, often in the prime of life, over.

What the Coalition on Homeless Concerns is proposing is that this is a community problem that our city, our caring organizations and agencies and churches CAN solve. What the coalition is asking of the city is simply the use of the old Carnegie building at least while its fate is being decided. The nights are cold; the building is empty. Even with $500,000 (for a start) by the city for renovations, the building COULD be used evenings. These are people who ask very little (surely not $500,000 for their needs!) no, just a place to be out of the cold.

The building COULD be used for classes, for counseling, for drug and alcohol rehab, for a clinic were it ever the wish of our community and its leaders to truly assist these most vulnerable of our citizens. But, in the meantime, UNTIL its fate is decided, we DO have a vacated building with no one using it, and we have people in our streets with nowhere to go, and winter is coming.

Hilda Enoch,

Lawrence