Dear editor,
I have to disagree with Tracy Keagle’s article in Saturday’s Iola Register. (“Area homeless need our compassion.”)
She calls them circumstances, I call them excuses. She says Iola has its “fair share” of homeless. If you start giving handouts, Iola will have more than its fair share.
I will give you one circumstance that I believe to be true, and that would be mental illness. Iola has no facility to handle such, so we should make sure that they get to the proper place to help them. Let me know and I will help.
Other than that there are no other excuses that have any weight with me. Just look in the Register, there are jobs aplenty.
Life is full of choices, there are good choices and there are bad choices. I know, I’ve made plenty of bad ones. But when you make a bad one you had better learn from it and make a right one to get back on track. Before you know it you’ll start making a lot of right ones. And if you want to learn how that works let me know and I’ll help with that, too.
Giving handouts does the receiver no good in the long run. It might make the giver feel better, but I don’t think that’s the end goal.
Now, giving hand-ups does do good for the receiver. If you need to know the difference let me know, I’ll help with that, too. In fact, I’ll make a suggestion. We have something blossoming right here in Allen County that I think is one of the greatest ideas we’ve had in a long time and that’s the Tech Center in LaHarpe. If you really want to help these homeless and take them in, give them a full ride scholarship to the Tech Center.
Now I don’t go around pontificating that I’m an expert on this subject, but I believe I have as much knowledge about it as Tracy does.
I’ll close out by giving Iola one last piece of advice. Never ever start a homeless shelter in this town.
Don Erbert,
Iola, Kan.
Dear editor,
I am a student at Cascade Christian Schools and I am writing a report on the state of Kansas. We are responsible for gathering as much information as we can about your state. If any of your readers would like to help me by sending any pictures, postcards, used license plates, facts, products, etc. from your state, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.
