City's homelessness is a housing problem

We appreciate The Sun's compelling coverage of homelessness ("City's homeless get frozen out," Dec. 6) and its statement urging a stronger community-wide response ("Street side," editorial, Dec. 7).

Both articles reflect an appropriate consensus that no one should freeze to death on our streets this winter.

The resulting dialogue also has helped clarify that we fundamentally face neither a "homeless" problem nor a "shelter" problem but a housing problem ("City is taking steps to help homeless" and "Housing department hasn't met the need," letters, Dec. 11).

Unfortunately, the continued erosion of affordable housing in this city keeps us stuck in a negative equation.

For example, the CitiStat program reports that between June 2006 and May 2007 alone, the city lost 730 units of publicly subsidized housing.

Even the noble efforts of Baltimore Homeless Services to accommodate 300 people in an emergency winter shelter and to place an additional 200 homeless individuals in permanent housing this year simply can't keep pace with this loss.

With a quarter of the city's population living in poverty and at least 40,000 renters at risk of homelessness because they pay more than 50 percent of their income for rent, Baltimore must first solve its housing problem if we truly wish to end homelessness.

Jeff Singer Kevin Lindamood Baltimore

The writers are, respectively, the president and CEO and a vice president for Health Care for the Homeless Inc.

Thinning deer herds helps other animals

Goucher College should be commended for trying to control deer on its campus ("Goucher aims to thin deer with bowmen," Dec. 7). It is too bad that the state of Maryland has failed to do so as well.

The overpopulation of deer in Maryland is badly hurting many species - most obviously birds such as towhees, brown thrashers, quail, pheasants, vireos, wood thrush, scarlet tanagers, countless warblers and most other birds that depend on ground cover six feet and lower.

Many of our woods are cleared of underbrush, and with the underbrush goes not only the ability of the forest to regenerate trees but also many of the birds.

The Maryland Department of the Environment needs to stop regarding deer as a source of income from hunting licenses and regard them as a crop to be harvested until their numbers are under control - so that other wildlife can survive.

Douglas Carroll

Lutherville

A small investment could save the deer

As an alumnus of Goucher College, I deplore the plan of the administration to slaughter some of the deer that inhabit its campus ("Goucher aims to thin deer with bowmen," Dec. 7).

The college has adopted an inhumane solution to the overpopulation of deer and rejected solutions that do not involve killing. Moreover, the current slaughter is only a temporary solution, and the college plans to kill dozens more next year.

The method of execution - shooting the deer with arrows - is particularly barbaric, and shows a total disregard of the pain inflicted on its victims.

More humane options include administering tranquilizers in food and water and euthanizing the deer.

The college administration has argued that other options, such as relocating the deer and administering contraceptives, are too costly.

This is ironic given that the college is spending tens of millions on construction, pays its president more than $300,000 per year and has been building an endowment for more than a century.

Yet even in the presence of these large sums of money, Goucher has not seen fit to invest the relatively small sum needed to save these animals.

Michael Berger

Timonium

Animal antibiotics fully tested by FDA

The editorial "Harvesting disease" (Dec. 3) opens with an illogical comparison between bioterrorism and the use of legitimate animal health products approved after rigorous review by the Food and Drug Administration. It goes on to make significant errors:

The strain of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) found in Canadian pigs is not the same strain circulating in U.S. communities, as the editorial indicates. The study the editorial refers to makes this clear - and this difference is crucial to microbiologists.

While the editorial acknowledges the pork industry has funded a testing program, The Sun states that, "No one is testing [U.S. pigs] for it."

But U.S. pork producers have funded independent experts to test for the possible presence of MRSA in U.S. pigs. In addition, public health authorities are adding testing for MRSA in animals and meat to existing surveillance programs.

The Johns Hopkins study that asserts that the use of antibiotics is not cost-effective has been debunked in published articles. The authors of that study made documented mathematical errors leading to an erroneous conclusion.

All antibiotics used to keep food animals healthy have undergone a rigorous approval process at FDA - one that, in some ways, is tougher for antibiotics used in animals than for antibiotics used in humans.

Additional studies to measure the risks and benefits of the use of these products have confirmed the significant human health benefits and very low risk of these products.

Richard Carnevale

Washington

The writer is a vice president of the Animal Health Institute, a group that represents drug manufacturers.

Hard line on Iran still right stance

For those letter writers attacking President Bush's continued hard line on Iran as unnecessary because of the CIA finding that Iran is not actively pursing nuclear weapons ("How can president still demonize Iran?" and "Congress must reject any attack on Iran," letters, Dec. 7)), I would remind them that this is the same CIA that confirmed with almost 100 percent certainty that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. Our blunder into invading Iraq based on incorrect CIA weapons of mass destruction intelligence has cost the lives of almost 4,000 of our brave troops.

If the CIA is wrong about Iran nuclear development now, that mistake could cost millions of lives - as there is little doubt Iran would use a nuclear bomb against Israel, the United States or both, possibly starting World War III.

Let's support the president in his efforts to keep the heat on Iran to stop enriching uranium or face the consequences.

Ron Wirsing

Havre de Grace

Tolerance must also extend to those who don't believe

As a non-believer who has felt increasingly marginalized and somewhat threatened by the rise of religious influence in the United States, I was most heartened by the sentiments expressed by Steve Chapman in "Romney flunks a religious test" (Opinion Commentary, Dec. 10).

In response to Mr. Romney's declaration that "we need to have a person of faith lead the country," I would draw attention to a 2005 study published in the Journal of Religion and Society.

The study compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy in 18 of the world's most prosperous democracies. These indicators were correlated with the percentage of people within each country who professed a belief in a creator.

While many Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, the study indicates that the opposite may be true.

The study concluded, "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion."

All that aside, Mr. Romney has the right to believe whatever he chooses and participate in our democracy as he desires, of course.

I would never advocate denying him or any American that right, regardless of belief.

I only ask the same courtesy and tolerance.

Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

Earle Hollenbaugh

Catonsville