Coming soon to a neighborhood near you

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you
EDITOR:
Police substations (Gary Crim) and major cleanup of thoroughfares (Bertram de Souza) into the city are very good ideas for the revitalization of Youngstown. The past indictments of judges, lawyers, public officials, and mobsters move us now to the conversation of, & quot;What do we do now? & quot;.
Let me indulge myself and approach several city problems from the bottom up since I, like Gary Crim, see the problem from ground level.
Why do impoverished citizens of the city act the way they do? First of all, who and why do individuals strip houses in the city?
Answer: to make a few dollars for the purchase of food, booze, and most of all drugs. Being a real estate investor, I remember being ordered to court on the grounds of failure to maintain property. The magistrate had pictures of an investment property stripped of aluminum siding, copper pipes, doors, etc., etc., etc.
Historians tell us when a city fails to secure and protect its assets, it is the death of the city. Police substations will cost a lot of money to operate. Instead, why not have two detectives visit the various salvage yards to warn them that any stripped metals or fixtures found in their possession will result in an indictment? This will solve the blight problem overnight.
The fault is not entirely the poor city dweller, but businessmen who liquidate stolen items for pennies on the dollar.
The modis operandi of migratory renters has evolved into the misuse of monthly government subsidies. Rather than utilizing the assistance to house and feed their children, the money is spent on everything but that.
I don't fault them entirely. Why do we place the funds in their hands when the reason they get assistance is because they didn't possess the discipline to support their families in the first place? The Who's Who Direct Rent Program proved that if assistance is budgeted for the recipients a roof over their heads is maintained, children not being uprooted every three to six months. Furthermore, the real estate investor is guaranteed funds to maintain his or her investments. With the welfare reform programs in their third year, discipline is being mandated, and a work ethic is being instilled.
Suburbanites' being indifferent to these problems of the city is a foolhardy act of ignorance. This should be a wake up call: blight and crime is at your doorsteps, ground zero of the crime wave is now in areas like the Upper South Side at the borders of Boardman, the Upper North Side spilling into Liberty, and the fringes of Austintown.
The devaluation of their prime asset should be their biggest worry. Houses in Youngstown are demolished to the tune of approximately 300 per year. Where do you think the dominos fall? Whose home will supply the next copper plumbing to be liquidated?. Suburban retreat is not the answer when the heartbeat of our community, our university, our hospitals and our county seat are in Youngstown.
Understanding that we are all in it together to find solutions rather than to decry the problem must be the focus. Social economics is truly at the root of our problems.
RON EISELSTEIN
Youngstown
Don't worry about bunny
EDITOR:
Even though the bunny is used as a pagan symbol, it is also a cute animal and a pet.
The early Christians saw the pagan celebration and decided to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on the same day.
They also saw the pagans observe the winter solstice so they decided to celebrate the birth of Christ on the same day.
The day is not good or evil but how it is used and lived for either good or evil.
Finally, there is no Christian nation and God has no grandchildren.
Jesus said that everyone must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven, not be born in America.
As God has said, "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
LEO FEHER
Youngstown