Aid to Homeless Could Improve Parks

Re “Redone Park No Longer a Home,” Feb. 8: I applaud Riverside’s efforts to restore White Park and beautify it. “Today,” your writer says, “the 112-year-old park practically shines.” Wonderful. The article said that the city is planning to spend $27 million in improvements to other parks over the next few years.

I have another suggestion: Use the $27 million to build homeless shelters, and Riverside will not have a homeless problem. The homeless people then can be put to work beautifying the other parks. The homeless problem, having been eliminated by the building of $27 million worth of housing, would cease to put the kinds of stress on the parks that outdoor living generates. The homeless men and women would be housed and off to a good start contributing to society.

To simply spend the $27 million on improving the parks without addressing the social problems that helped cause the decline of the parks and surrounding neighborhoods is foolish and shortsighted. A civilized society is judged not in how it coddles and protects the strong but in how it helps and cares for the weak.

Roger Barwise

Los Angeles