As a clinical social worker with 40 years’ experience in Altoona, I see that homeless individuals cannot thrive in a capitalist oligarchy in which society is stratified by class. Because of serious mentally ill behaviors, they cannot navigate a complex society due to impairments in occupational, social and reality testing.

The recent Altoona City Council meeting exists in this societal context of a class society in which it punishes by ordinance those who do not conform to the materialistic ideology of a clean town, rights of property owners and the only investments that middle class people have — private ownership of land. Homeless individuals do not abide by these boundaries and squat on land that our governing rulers see as urban blight.

There is no political representation for the homeless and no solutions to their chronic impairments because in a capitalistic, materialistic society they have no status. And there is no adequate social safety net to house them, provide treatment or nurture their recovery. That is the root of the problem: They cannot exist in our society and there is no political will to help them.

John D. Grove

Altoona