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Readers write: How to handle housing crisis

Letters to the editor for the May 30, 2016 weekly magazine.

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Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Roommates Jin Long Chen (r.) and Gao Xin Wu hang out in the living room in their small 2-bedroom apartment in Chinatown, on March 23, 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • By Vickie Noyes Monitor reader
  • Charles Forsberg Monitor reader

I read with great interest your April 25 & May 2 cover story, “The price isn’t right.” My husband and I are both retired teachers. Our daughter and son-in-law (and now our two small grandchildren) have been living with us since before their boys were born. I have been struggling with guilt, thinking I have been “enabling” them to be irresponsible freeloaders.

However, I have also watched these two young adults come to grips with trying to hold down solid jobs and dealing with combined debt from “starter marriages,” student loans, and health-care requirements – all while putting the boys’ needs first. Every time they take a step forward, something happens that sets them back.

We can talk about how these young adults could have or should have done things differently, but the time for that is gone! I am so grateful that my husband and I do have the resources to help. But there is a lot of juggling that goes on in our household, and some days are better than others.

I realized I could drop the guilt and embrace the fact that in God’s eyes, I am not an enabler and these young people are not freeloaders. I can use the ideas in the Christian Science Perspective article to pray for my situation and embrace others. Solutions need to be found. There is so much more to this story and so much that needs to be done.

Thank you for your article. It could not have come at a better time.

Vickie Noyes

Woodland, Wash.

Regarding your April 25 & May 2 cover story: Hyper-expensive housing is a consequence of how cities are organized. Boston and New York are centralized cities with limited land and high-density housing and therefore expensive housing. Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Seattle have a central city but also several urban midsize cities within the metropolitan area.

That more spread-out model drastically lowers the housing costs, commute times, and income inequality caused by high housing prices. 

Charles Forsberg

Lexington, Mass.

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