Twice on Mass Street in the past week, I have encountered homeless women with infants asking for money for necessities such as diapers. How can this be happening in an affluent community in the wealthiest, advanced, industrialized nation?

When I asked the women about any assistance they could obtain from the state, they said they were given food stamps but nothing else. The Lawrence Community Shelter is the only place they can stay, which is no place for babies.

During the last two years that I served on the city committee appointed to review grants requesting alcohol tax funds, hundreds of thousands of dollars that we requested for nonprofit agencies were, based on the city manager’s recommendation, summarily stripped from our grant approvals and, without any real good justification, dropped into the police department budget. Our recommendations included funds for homelessness and shelter.

Given everything that the city of Lawrence funds, I find it very difficult to understand why safe, healthy, shelter cannot be provided to a few homeless children and their parents. I also have difficulty understanding the lack of state and federal assistance for homelessness.