To the editor:

The question of a safe and decent place for human beings to sleep out of our extreme heat and sudden heavy downpours is not just the problem of Loring Henderson, Lawrence Community Shelter director and his dedicated staff and board. It is surely all of ours, most particularly our community leaders, who have now said “no” to a tent city and raised code concerns that ended the emergency use of the First Christian Church and sleeping in the LCS basement for the overflow from the Salvation Army shelter’s closing.

The liability is all of ours, that we pretend it’s safer for people to sleep in our streets and alleys, and that we somehow blame the one welcoming location for its extreme inadequacies!

Surely in this town there is a safe and adequate place for those strangers in our midst to sleep, many of whom suffer from mental and physical disabilities. Securing it and opening it to those without any place at all to be is all of our urgent responsibility.