The members of the Ashland City Council, who considered making staying in shelters more difficult by lowering winter temperatures and raising summer temps should be ashamed of themselves.

Too bad they cannot be forced to live outside in 32 degree temperatures and live in boiling hot temperatures. Maybe then they would get a reality check, in regards to what they are sentencing people, down on their luck to. 

Considering a change in their temperature guidelines to even more extremes, both in the winter and summer, is a travesty. They are just showing their lack of compassion and fear. Fear of reality!

They are faced with a growing abundance of needy people, many of whom, are just like them, minus the home. A lot of these homeless people, have, for many different reasons, lost their ability to maintain a home. Many people want a home and have the means to attain one but cannot find a landlord willing to rent to them. Many are being denied housing because they have a lower (yet steady) income, or lack of recent previous references, or do not fit into the percentage recommendations of how much one is supposed to have left monetarily, after paying rent! Let alone the mounds of paperwork and and bureaucracy involved, that make it extremely difficult to return to being in a home again. Thus many, just give up — and it’s so sad.

It’s amazing that instead of caring for these people, the councilors would consider eradicating them from their sight in any way possible. They want to close their eyes to the deterioration happening in their country, not just in their backyard.

To think that offering relief in frigid temps and extreme heat is even up for debate is extremely disconcerting and disappointing!             

Surely these people who would think about making it harder on the homeless, don’t have a conscience!  Or if they do, it certainly doesn’t apply to people.

Kaylou Britton

Ashland

Related story: Temperature threshold for severe weather shelter to stay the same, councilors decide