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e e e mental problems or alcohol problems or drug problems on the churches, syna- gogues, and lodges, but instead can open them to people who need warmth, shelter, rest rooms, protection--to Eugene families who need help and need to be plugged into the system, not to be isolated in parks or streets, out of sight, and out of our compassion. If we will do this, you can put me down as one of the volunteers, and I am sure all the political leaders would be willing to take their turn to give the people who are homeless a chance to get help for right now. Now this is not a new idea with me. This idea has been talked about by clergy who have been in my office and by other concerned citizens who have been in my office talking about how we come together to help people right now, immediately, with the limited resources that are there. There has even been a letter to the editor saying that we ought to do something like this. I agree with that. I think that we ought to do something like this for a short-term solution. But this will only solve us in time, not the problem. There is no way the churches, synagogues, and lodges, we volunteering our- selves, will be able to solve the problem in this way. This is strictly a short-term way to buy us time until we can get the long-term solution in place. The long-term solution is not a new one because the council has been working on it and it is before the County right now. The County is pulling its staff together to look at it again. It would provide housing to people so they would not have to pay more than $250 a month to be able to make ends meet and so they could get on with their lives. It would do this by establishing a nonprofit development corporation so that we could develop permanent, low- cost housing. We would start constructing 30 to 50 new apartments each year over the next five years. We would establish a loan fund to assist with construction of single-room occupancy housing. We would create home owner- ship programs to assist low- and moderate-income families in purchasing their homes; and we would expand our existing housing rehabilitation program. It is time for us as a community to support these recommendations because they can work and they can make a difference. Now to be sure, there is going to be a price to be paid, and that price has not been agreed upon yet. That's why we're going to be getting back togeth- er, to see if we can have agreement on how we pay for it, because I'm telling you, there is going to be a price to be paid no matter what we do. Either the price of providing the dignity of decent and affordable housing to our less fortunate neighbors, or the price we'll pay for the social consequences of children who are not fed, of students who are not educated, and of fami- lies who are not sheltered. Remember, prevention always costs less than the cure. We need to support these recommendations this year, and get underway this year, and you'll be hearing from us that we've got to do that this year. A second challenge comes from what I hear expressed by our young people, and maybe you have heard it also. That is when they say, "We don't have anything to do, or enough to do in our community." They have come before the council saying, "We need a place where we can skateboard," and the council is looking at dealing with that need in the very near future. But right now, there is more need than we can handle with the facilities on hand. If we look at our STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS: MAYOR JEFF MILLER January 8, 1990 Page 4