The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

TO THE EDITOR:

With regards to the Sunday article “Mayoral candidate’s flier predicts attacks by homeless” in The Chapel Hill News, we need to consider the implications of electing mayoral candidate Kevin Wolff for office.

His prediction that having a homeless shelter built in the city would lead to children being “assaulted, molested, kidnapped, or killed” is completely unprofessional and disgraceful. Falsely scaring the public is not a way to achieve admiration from your potential voters. Wolff’s generalization against the homeless population should be enough to vote against him in the upcoming election.

I am currently working in a homeless shelter where I have discovered that a vast majority of these individuals are extremely friendly and appreciative of the assistance given to them. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, homeless people are less likely to commit crimes against person or property than non-homeless people. We should be more worried about our neighbors than we should be about those that don’t have a home.

Being homeless doesn’t mean that these individuals are dangerous and violent. It simply means that they don’t have a home.

Who wants a discriminating mayor to make decisions for the city of Chapel Hill? I know I don’t.

Randy Smith
Graduate Student
Social Work

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