To the editor:

Before creating another expensive bureaucracy, we need to address a few basic issues about the homeless. Our priority should be the people who were Lawrence residents before becoming homeless. Common sense (and the homeless advocates’ reluctance to provide this statistic) suggests that this number is very small. We can easily and effectively help these homeless people with a substantially smaller program than currently exists.

The remainder of the people, which possibly constitutes 90 percent of the homeless, migrated to Lawrence and are primarily either drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill or simply voluntarily transient. Although most of these people need help, the proposed bureaucracy is simply another misguided “feel good” response to an exaggerated problem.

The fact that the vast majority of our homeless population is not from Lawrence shows that Lawrence is already an attractive haven for the homeless people. The proposed bureaucracy will increase the attractiveness of Lawrence and consequently will increase our homeless population. Undoubtedly, the homeless advocates will then seek to expand their bureaucracy even further to address “our growing homeless problem.”

Ed White,

Lawrence