Owning One’s Home

This past week there have been two excellent articles regarding families trying to protect themselves from problems our society has bestowed upon us.

One was on the lady in Long Beach who has been reduced to sleeping on a vacant lot and sifting through the rubble to find her keepsakes because her home of many years was bulldozed by the city because it didn’t meet the neighborhood standards.

The other article reported on the family in Fountain Valley with eight children who built a safe batting cage in their own yard so their children would have a safe place to practice baseball, and not have their equipment going into the road, or worse, into the neighbor’s window. A petition was presented stating 35 neighbors were for the practice area and six were against it so it must be torn down.

Both of these families are homeowners. Just what does that mean? You get the privilege of paying taxes, insurance, being responsible for all the upkeep, and still don’t have the freedom to enjoy your own property that you have worked so hard to own?

It’s a sad day when a handful of “do-gooders” who are afraid their image might be injured can govern our every effort to live in and realize the freedom that is supposed to have been bestowed on all the people in this country.

SONDRA LANE

Costa Mesa