Editor,

He sat in my kitchen with tears of fear and distress welling in his eyes. “I never thought I’d be homeless,” he said. “I worked hard, a good citizen, raised a family here, voted in every election. I don’t owe any money, no debts, pay my bills. I never miss a rent payment. I can make ends meet, but it’s hard with the food costs. I eat just once a day.”

This is a real person that your Jan. 3 article on the end of a federal housing assistance program is talking about. He is elderly, disabled and living alone in a tiny apartment near Coupeville, where he felt secure. But now, after abruptly being notified his housing assistance was ending, he reports worrying twenty-four hours a day, his life in turmoil, his nights sleepless.

His daughter and I have assured him, an independent cuss trying to live out his life in dignity, that he won’t be homeless, and the local Housing Authority is trying to help. But the sudden and unexpected cessation of a HUD housing program in the richest country in the world has a devastating effect on the lives of real human beings. Thousands of people across the United States are in danger of becoming homeless in August or September in this new year. And this is what they call Making America Great Again?

Our government has become cruel toward those most vulnerable among us, the elderly and disabled among so many others who are vulnerable, like hungry children and people now unable to afford health insurance.

I, for one, miss the social and moral conscience of the FDR era and its vision of a social safety net. Indeed, I miss any sign of a moral conscience in the Trump Administration and the Republican Congress at all. Period.

Betty Azar

Freeland