To the editor:

The Lawrence Salvation Army is offering classes to help people who are homeless get back on their feet. (J-W, page 1A, Feb. 6). The only catch is those who do not attend nine classes a month will be out on our streets! It is well and good to help persons struggling to get back on their feet and to provide incentives.

Those of us working with citizens who are mentally ill or with serious addiction problems, our chronically homeless population, know there is not a 90-day quick fix. The 1-inch mats on the hard gym floor do not provide luxury housing for people, merely a place to survive another night.

IF that is no longer to be available to these human beings, where are they to go? What are we, as a community providing? And if not now, with this new crisis looming in their lives, when?

Hilda Enoch,

Lawrence