Roof over their head now
With the recent arrest of Samuel Hernandez and Kryst Teinauri-Nakamura, they are no longer homeless and the folks who have given them handouts where they panhandle will not have to give them their hard-earned money now.
Instead, we all get to help support them now with tax dollars. They probably won’t make as much money in jail as they would out panhandling and selling narcotics, but at least they will have a warm place to sleep with catered food.
Vicky Halquist
Kailua-Kona
Support dying with dignity
bill this year
He lay on an elevated bed in my gramma’s living room. His skin all brown and wrinkled and leathery from the leukemia that was ravaging his body. No sheet. Anything touching his skin caused sores. His breathing was labored and raspy.
My uncle Richard never regained consciousness in the three months he laid there. His five young children have only this image of their father dying a slow and painful death as their final memories of their father. I don’t want that! Do you?
Why, with a doctor’s diagnosis of terminal illness, could my uncle not receive help to die with dignity? Why didn’t he and his family have the choice of doctor supervised medical assistance in dying as one option to consider during these last painful months? I’d want that. Wouldn’t you?
Last year, Hawaii had the chance to join Canada and six other states to pass legislation to allow medical assistance for terminally ill patients facing less than six months to live. The bill passed the Senate, but failed to move out of House committee.
This year, please join me in urging all legislators to pass such a law for our terminally ill elderly. It wouldn’t be the only choice. But it would be one choice a patient could consider. Thank you.
Bob Gentzel
Ninole
Paid for by us, the taxpayers
I think that our county is heading down a path of no return, a situation that will be a curse to our children and grandchildren. To deal with the situation will require some very difficult choices.
To begin with, today I received an eight page letter from the Social Security Administration. They informed me that in 2018, I will be receiving a 2 percent increase in my SS check because of “a rise in the cost of living.”
I jumped for joy.
“Wow, I’m getting a 2 percent increase,” I shouted to my wife who couldn’t understand my excitement.
However, in the next few pages, the administration informed me that the increase would amount to nothing because of the increase in my medicare costs, which are deducted from my Social Security check.
I put down the Social Security letter and picked up the WHT hoping to read something more comforting. Instead of reading the comic page, I chose to read the front page. The people arrested at the homeless housing, Hale Kikaha, caught my eye. It made me think of the costs this one arrest will heap on us the taxpayers.
First of all, these homeless persons were forcefully removed from their original campsite. That effort required multiple county agencies, all being paid by us, the taxpayers. The garbage left behind at the campsite was later removed by county employees from another county agency funded by us, the taxpayers. Micro-units were purchased and set up for these homeless people paid for by us, the taxpayers. Hope Services runs the program supported by us, the taxpayers. Those arrested again required the services of the taxpayer-funded police officers who conducted the raid and processing.
The arrested are taken to the police holding cell where they are housed and fed at the expense of the taxpayers. Upon going to court, they are provided legal representation paid for by the taxpayers. If convicted, they will either be housed at taxpayers’ expense in jail or be let out on supervisory release paid for by us, the taxpayers again.
This is some form of insanity that has become the norm. At my age, I can still remember the old days when having food and a place to sleep meant one having to work for it.
Somehow, I kind of doubt that the 2 percent increase I received in my Social Security benefits matches the benefit afforded the homeless who sell drugs (and get caught).
Leningrad Elarionoff
Waimea
