A recent letter criticized the city Department of Parks and Recreation for installing 600 new park benches, asserting that they would attract houseless people (“Homeless sure to like new park benches,” Star-Advertiser, Dec. 24). The callousness, cruelty and heartlessness of the letter were astounding. In its sarcasm, the letter drips with scorn for people who are suffering, as if the writer thinks they are less human than he is. (Most people with homes are just one firing by a jerk of a boss away from a similar fate.)

It’s doubtful he has ever spoken to or helped a houseless person, and the city typically is no better when it criminalizes people whose suffering is the result of a terribly flawed and immoral economic and social system that city policies help perpetuate. The solution is fixing the system, not treating people with malice and disdain. And to think that his letter appeared on Christmas Eve. Unbelievable.

Peter Greenhill

Moiliili

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