Local food banks deserve our help

I have been involved with helping the least fortunate in our community for almost a decade. I am dismayed that our only major food bank is at risk.

I know the manager at Manna. He is a man of outstanding character. If his clients are the problem, he'll address it. However, what are the problems?

Earlier this year Lutheran Social Services had to curtail hours of operation for helping the homeless. Problems were cited, and I am sure there were a select few who poisoned the well for the majority in need.

There is, in the planning stage, a requirement for communities to establish homeless shelters.

It will be interesting to know what objections are raised in the Conejo and in Simi Valley. There are also some objections to the Conejo Annual Homeless Shelter program and some of the host sites for the meal program.

In the Conejo and elsewhere it is against the law to sleep or live in your car. The same is true for those living in motor homes.

Churches have opened up their parking lots to this category of homeless and are subjected to neighborhood complaints. At a meal site I volunteered at in a Ventura neighborhood, the residents objected to the needy passing through their neighborhood on their way to eat a meal.

The gist of this letter is that a pattern has developed. The strategy is to hide our homeless and make it difficult for the less fortunate to feed their families or themselves.

Finally, since the economic downturn began, the various Conejo charitable organizations have seen a run on assistance monies. Just this month alone, funds have dried up at several sources.

How many more homeless will we turn our back on, and how many will grow hungry? If it is Manna now, who is next? Robert Pisapia Westlake Village