Conditions affect everyone

To the Editor:

I congratulate you, Ms. Sheehan, and your assistant editor Matt Hongoltz-Hetling, on your recent in-depth look at the "world of lower income rental housing," and the shameful practice of a certain few landlords who have been renting non-compliant housing in Norway and Paris for many years.

Unsafe conditions like those in your article are a disgrace to our community, and a frustration not only to the tenants involved, but to the many folks who are really trying to find a way to make the seemingly unworkable situation somehow become workable. Many conscientious town officials, volunteer workers, and state and local fire officials are critically aware of these life safety issues; but are, like the tenants you speak of, stuck in the murk of a short-circuited chain of responsibilities.

This is a dreadful time in our economy; hard to think about being our brother's (or sister's) keeper, when so many are trying to keep the wolf from his or her own door; easier not to have to look at someone else's need.

But we do not have a choice. Slum dwellers, slum landlords, slum conditions are a bleak and dismal story as old as time itself. This situation impacts all of us. Thank you for making us look at it.

Kathy Richardson

Paris