While Mayor Ginther’s June 29 Dispatch.com column, "'Inaction is not an option.' If housing not addressed, market will destabilize, homelessness will increase," painted a succinct picture of the housing crisis in which Columbus finds itself, one phrase stands out.

More:Ginther: 'Inaction is not an option.' If housing not addressed, market will destabilize, homelessness will increase

Describing the urgency of the issue, Mayor Ginther states, “If we fail to act now, the housing market will destabilize even further, many of our most vulnerable residents will experience homelessness, and our collective quality of life will be lost.”

Hidden in this is a phrase that aligns with his administration’s pattern of dehumanizing those without housing: “Many of our most vulnerable residents will experience homelessness.”

If our neighbors facing homelessness are most vulnerable, then what are our neighbors without homes? Beyond vulnerable? Beyond supporting?

More:Franklin County homeless shelter population up, challenged by lack of affordable housing

While the Ginther administration has provided funding to a few human service organizations recently, I fail to see how to continuously displacing neighbors without homes nor this $1.5 billion bond package will do much for those without homes.

Actually, I fail to see any substantive policy to address homelessness from City Hall.

Now, affordable housing in this city is crucial as we experience the growing pains of an evolving metropolis and I will most likely vote for this bond issue as a resident, but just as it is important to keeping neighbors in safe and affordable housing, so is providing the support to so many that this city has failed to keep housed.   

Share your thoughts:How to submit a letter to the editor for The Columbus Dispatch

I recently turned 19, and I’m looking forward to casting my ballot in November. I am penning this letter because I have grown increasingly frustrated with a faction of the progressive wing who has voiced its intention to forgo their vote and/or refrain from grassroots fundraising because of its disappointment with our elected or appointed leaders.

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I, too, am deeply troubled by the direction of national politics, but now is not the time to disengage.

That would be a disservice to Black Americans who laid their lives on the line to vote in the Jim Crow era; to indigenous Americans who were later victim to the same tools for intimidation and disenfranchisement; to suffragists lining the streets for the 19th Amendment; to same-sex couples who continue to stand against those who would take their pride.

If you feel powerless now, imagine the consequences of losing our legislative majority and capitulating our gubernatorial races, our last safeguard against these barbaric bills.

Now is the time to defend our democracy.

History has shown that popular resistance triumphs, even when the future appears grim. I hope you will join me at the ballot box.

Theodore Decker reminds us about the billion-dollar boondoggle known as ECOT while a “string of governors, legislators, and state officials” sat idly by (June 30, "Billion-dollar boondoggle ECOT must be addressed"). 

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Since these representatives of the people have failed to look out for us, should we just take things into our own hands and refuse to pay taxes that pay their salaries and support corruption? Let’s have a referendum on that. Sign here.