An open letter to Westmoreland County Commissioners Doug Chew, Sean Kertes and Gina Cerilli Thrasher:

Last week you approved a $3.6 million plan for construction of a new homeless shelter with 12 beds. Is this right? $300,000 a bed? Even a third of that cost is outrageous.

Then it needs staff, utilities, maintenance, insurance, furnished. Let’s see: $200/month for all of that per unit — 200 x 12 x 12 x 20 years = only $576,000 total operating cost for 20 years! It is hard to understand how a reasonable total cost should exceed a capital cost unit over $60,000/unit x 12 units = $720,000 + $576,000 = $1,396,000. That’s fully funded and well under half what you plan to spend. Half of what you plan to spend would be a generous amount.

Where do you think that $3.6 million comes from? It’s not free money. It’s from overtaxed taxpayers and unaffordable deficit spending. Instead of envisioning a plaque on a wall glorifying yourselves for this boondoggle, you should be leading protests against avoidable, wasteful, excessive federal giveaways. Your front-row seat to this federal nonsense is not your audition to play extra on the stage. You are definitely part of the problem with government, not part of the solution.

Buy an old motel, apartment building or other residential building. Cut the cost by at least 50%.

Jim Baker

Greensburg

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