Letters: Psychiatric beds | Rethink housing | Gun control | Western history | Trump acolytes
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County needs more, not
fewer, psychiatric beds
Re: “County must secure needed inpatient psychiatric beds” (Page A6, Aug. 11).
Please do not remove any mental health beds. The need is so great.
Less mental health support is only making our communities less safe and families’ quality of life diminish. Our loved ones’ mental health deserves as much support as any other illness.
My heart breaks for all who are unable to get the necessary support.
Linda Lissner
San Jose
We must rethink
housing across ages
Re: “Texas? Florida? Nope. Bay Area refugees are fleeing to Seattle” (Page A1, Aug. 13).
The Bay Area and California housing crisis is an American issue. We must reconfigure housing across the ages and stages of life.
Last year I helped relocate my parents who are in their mid-80s to Stoneridge Creek, a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) in Pleasanton. They were “aging in place” in their Marin home along with most of their friends.
We need to free up single-family homes for young families and build more CCRCs, senior communities, and create financial incentives for seniors to relocate. Furthermore, the 30% of vacant commercial real estate in San Francisco and other cities needs to be reconfigured for housing for families and seniors. We have enough buildings; we need to create a system for optimal use for society versus individuals.
With the expanded life expectancy of the past century, we don’t have enough space to have everyone live in their single-family home for 50-plus years.
Andrea Bloom
Pleasanton
U.S. must have
effective gun control
It is imperative that we reduce the number of weapons in our nation as six of every 10 suicides is by a gun.
Equally alarming is the number of mass murders, often carried out by teenagers seeking to become famous, resulting in suicide by cop. Police who must shoot a teenage gunman are themselves traumatized by killing a confused kid. This madness must be ended.
Our nation must pass effective gun limits in spite of the Second Amendment.
Gil Villagran
San Jose
Don’t tear down
Western history
Re: “American education filled with fabled Eurocentric worldview” (Page A7, Aug. 8).
Why is the woke left so miserable with absolutely everything, that they feel they must tear down our entire history? Statues. Military leaders. Names of forts. School names. Street names. Now David Redman is going after famous inventors — Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell, Johannes Gutenberg, etc., claiming that these men don’t deserve full (or any) credit for their inventions.
This has been our history forever, but now must it too be erased? Torn down? Rewritten? I’m sure if the woke history buffs went to be educated in China or Russia (or any other country), they’d soon find that in their histories, the Chinese or the Russians invented everything.
Our history, and every other country’s history, has served them well for centuries. Just focus on the future and leave history alone. Nothing is gained by tearing it down.
Joseph Gumina
San Carlos
Trump acolytes post
nation’s greatest risk
Given the recent developments in the civil and criminal cases against Donald Trump, it is likely that he is more problematic for the Republican Party if he runs for president in 2024 and wins the nomination than if he does not run for president.
Far more dangerous to me are the Trump acolytes around the country who parrot his cynical views of America. They would have us believe that their vision of a White-Christian America makes them the victims of the democratic and progressive agenda in our country that is grounded in diversity and change.
We live in an ever-changing global world where there is more and more freedom to be yourself and to live how you want to live. Those who would insist that being White and Christian is the way are the real threat to our freedom and democracy.
Larry Lauro
San Jose