Homeless: A cause not to abandon. In response to a fellow citizen, taxpayer, and resident I write to say that we as citizens, taxpayers and residents should not abandon the homelessness cause, nor should it be pushed aside and buried.

In a recent letter to the editor I read was a local resident profiling the homeless community as evil and full of crime. Has this resident actually walked among the homeless community? Has he talked to any of them? To automatically assume that all people who are homeless are criminals and that they choose this life is generalizing all citizens without a home are evil members of society.

Throughout the Coeur d’Alene community are people who want to rise up and change their current circumstances. Not every homeless citizen wants to be there and some might be there through no fault of their own. That does not make them evil. I speak now to the community and say take a look around you and you will find that not every citizen without a home is a criminal, a bum, or a transient professional or otherwise. Someday circumstances could lead you to those institutions that are there to give that hand up that so many citizens need. Citizens that might not succeed without it.

KEELEE RICHARDSON

Post Falls