To the editor: I can’t remember the exact date — was it 2016 or maybe 2017 — when I read in The Times about the billions of dollars needed to build the new football stadium in Inglewood, while the city and county were scraping together hundreds of millions of dollars to try to end homelessness. (“The under-the-radar proposal to end homelessness in Los Angeles for $20 billion,” Sept. 13)
At the time, the aid organizations where I worked in Los Angeles were still struggling to meet the increased needs of people in the post-housing bubble. Billions seemed so much harder to raise than millions, but we could predict what would happen.
What became SoFi Stadium was built in a few years, and today the seats are filled with fans, while now we’re asking if $20.4 billion could end homelessness as people remain on the streets of Los Angeles.
As the old proverb says, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Kristin Barberia, Tucson, Ariz.
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To the editor: Problem solved, slam dunk, easy as pie, child’s play.
Are you listening, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison? I won’t even waste my breath with an Elon Musk utterance here.
This works out to the paltry sum of $6.6 billion each to end homelessness in Los Angeles. Just do it, and your legacies will be secure.
But not so fast. Don’t put those checkbooks away just yet — if you’ve got a moment, can we take a quick look at the next catastrophe confronting and confounding this world.
Mark Richardson, Encinitas