JAY THOMAS, San Clemente
San Clemente is a tourist town. Putting the homeless in San Clemente hotels and motels is a horrible idea. Who wants to stay at a hotel with homeless people (many of whom are drug addicted and/or mentally ill) not just nearby but right down the hall?
The homeless should be kept as far away as possible from tourist areas. Let the county open, operate and pay for shelters a wide distance from schools, public areas and tourist zones.
Learn the lessons from cities like San Francisco and Portland, which have tolerated and enabled the homeless to the point they are now overrun and have crashed their tourism industries into the rocks—which unfortunately has opened plenty of hotel rooms for even more homeless.
That’s what is known as a death spiral (some now use the term “doom loop”), but whatever you call it, it’s not something that we want or need here in beautiful San Clemente.
