Paying to house displaced renters in hotels wasteful. Real solutions must be found.

Paying hotels to house displaced people wasteful

Re "Ex-Colonial Village resident still in limbo," April 26: Could someone from the city’s department of development please explain why the city doesn’t invest emergency resources to preserve existing housing as opposed to incurring relocation costs and payments to hotel owners.

The placement of liens on properties for work done on decrepit properties would protect the city's investment. Attempting to continually relocate tenants is a fool’s mission in this rental housing environment.

Any loss of affordable rental housing units leads to higher replacement cost alternatives.

More:Hundreds of Colonial Village tenants still need housing as deadline to vacate motels looms

Providing housing vouchers to former tenants is a positive step. However, the value would be greatly enhanced if city attorneys would aggressively pursue enforcement of recently passed source of income legislation.

Carl Faller, Columbus

The Earth can't fix climate change

 "What’s the difference between global warming and climate change?" (April 26) needs clarification.

Climate change since the beginning of the industrial revolution is entirely attributable to the burning of fossil fuels and not at all to natural causes. Over hundreds of thousands of years, changes in the Earth’s position relative to the sun have been responsible for the ice ages and the warmer interglacial periods.

These fluctuations in the Earth’s orientation are known as the Milankovitch cycles. NASA states: “ . . . Earth is currently in an interglacial period (a period of milder climate between Ice Ages). If there were no human influences on climate, scientists say Earth’s current orbital positions within the Milankovitch cycles predict our planet should be cooling, not warming, continuing a long-term cooling trend that began 6,000 years ago.”

So long as more and more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels, the effects of climate change will worsen. Natural changes in the Earth’s orbital position are currently helping to reduce the problem. The rest is up to us.

Joe Winner, Columbus

Ohio Health Care Act stalled, residents pay

On one hand legislators want to legislate everything that moves for individuals. They "preempt" local "home rule" governments to insist that their will must be obeyed for the sake of uniformity.  But for corporations, they allow the lawless Wild West to continue.

Advocates for hospital pricing found that to be the case, as a bill to require hospitals to post an upfront cost for services was gutted in the Senate. It's not an accident. It is who they are and what they do.

Healthcare for All Ohioans/SPAN Ohio has the "Ohio Health Care Act" in the House as House Bill 174, where the Insurance Committee chair will not have a proponent hearing. The same bill under Senate Bill 177 in the Senate, has not even been given a sponsor hearing by the insurance committee chair.

 No surprise! 

The legislation would enable all Ohioans to have access to all necessary healthcare at no cost at the point of care. Corporate providers, i.e. hospitals, drug companies, health insurers, and media whom legislators serve, would have their "oxen gored." So expect that Ohio will continue to lag far behind, (44th place in the current Health Policy Institute of Ohio rankings) paying too much, and getting too little.

58 other nations provide health care for all their residents with no cost at the point of care. But with the dysfunctional mindset of most federal and state legislators, don't expect it here anytime soon.

Bob Krasen, executive committee, Health Care for All Ohioans/SPAN Ohio

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