Dear Editor:
At 7 am. this past Thursday, as I left Marineview to go to work, I encountered a long line of shivering people wrapped in blankets, sleeping bags on beach chairs or on the cold ground. I knew some of the faces from Hoboken and understood all too well why they were there. They are hoping for a home in a middle income building. Middle income being a household earning less than eighty thousand. These people were taking time from jobs, risking illness, losing sleep and enduring many hours of discomfort because there is nowhere else for working people to go in Hoboken at the present time.
Immediately across River Street, facing the back of Marineview and the line of people, construction workers were continuing the erection of a huge, ugly, block building, banging and yelling. There is supposedly an agreement that heavy work on this site is not supposed to begin until 8 a.m. Rules of consideration for others do not apply to rich developers who are major campaign contributors in this town. They are in a big hurry to put this monstrosity up for the profit it will bring! Households in this building will require about a half a million to pay for their view of the Hudson and the concrete towers across the river.
This juxtaposition of the rich and people of modest means facing each other across the street reminded me of the evening news report claiming the split in the presidential race is primarily across class lines. There are exceptions to this, of course. I know a few well-to-do Democrats although I don’t know any poor Republicans.
It is sad and exasperating to see the middle ground of decent living standards and housing for hard working people being eroded in our home town and in the country at large. What we need is leadership that is courageous enough and not motivated by unmitigated greed to take this formidable issue on. Is there anybody out there?
Jean Forest