The Issue: How homeless people living on New York City’s streets are viewed and handled by the public.
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Steve Cuozzo should stick to his witty restaurant reviews (“The Homeless Plague,” PostOpinion, Dec. 5).
He stereotypes the homeless, en masse, as “mad” substance abusers.
Homelessness in and of itself is a traumatizing experience that is extremely hard to overcome and that has been shown to contribute to mental illness and to worsen existing mental illness.
People live on the street because the shelter system is dehumanizing, filthy, violent and packed over capacity.
With rents as high as they are — and, as Cuozzo well knows, with all real estate at very low vacancy levels — and wages stagnant or declining, many families have little emergency savings and are often one lost paycheck, one illness or one misfortune away from homelessness.
Cuozzo is more at home with his dining suggestions for the 1 percent. Roberta Winters
Richmond Hill
Thanks to Cuozzo for setting the record straight.
I’m a retired NYPD officer and wonder every day whether anyone is going to investigate the scammer on the corner of 48th Street and 7th Avenue “collecting for the homeless.” I am certain that he needs a criminal investigation and that it is a ring of people, not an isolated case.
Cuozzo hit the nail on the head about the homeless, but that NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo is still a saint for what he did.
Just because scammers can make our charity seem naïve doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still give. We just need to be more selective.
Hopefully, Cuozzo’s article will work in that direction.Brendan Finn
Long Beach