Affordable housing

Mary Barron's interview with Hillary Clinton (NCR, May 2) made it apparent that Sen. Clinton has closely studied the U.S. bishops' "Economic Justice for All" and the major imperatives of Catholic social teaching. She uses all the right terms and speaks on the issues convincingly, all except one, that of affordable housing for all, particularly those in poverty. She emphasizes the need for early childhood education for all children, which is indeed important. However, no amount of early childhood education is going to work for a child whose family is living out of a motel in an emergency situation and who has had to be taken out of kindergarten because his parent doesn't have a car and his school bus "doesn't pick up there." No amount of early childhood education is going to help a child's sense of well-being and ability to learn when each day she asks: "Where will we sleep tonight, Mama?"

The situation of women, children and two-parent families without safe, permanent, affordable or subsidized housing in this country is catastrophic and morally criminal. Every community in our country now knows the face of homelessness and sees the despair of the displaced. Nowhere in the interview is this issue mentioned, yet until it is confronted directly by policymakers first, no "ending poverty in 10 years" statement will ever come about. People without housing cannot get to jobs or schools or function in what our market economy says must be a productive way in order to be deemed worthy.

DOROTHY TRINEN

Edmonds, Wash.

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