Letters: Tap tech companies to fund more interim housing

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Tap tech to fund more interim housing

With city, county and state budgets in the red, it’s obvious that we need to think outside of the box to fund homelessness programs.

Local corporations are an untapped resource. Why aren’t we pushing Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia, Intel, Cisco and Adobe to more funding to emergency interim housing sites? Signage can proudly display their corporate names to advertise their goodwill, which could create some competition among them. Most of the companies mentioned are good citizens and already donate millions to food banks — a very worthwhile cause. However, so is sheltering the unhoused, but with a far greater positive visual impact.

Getting the homeless off the streets into temporary housing helps the individual while improving the city and county’s image.

David Wilkins
San Jose

Defunding schools is threatening our future

Re: “Asia’s rapid rise shows power of education” (Page A7, Feb. 11).

Nicolas Kristof’s article is a very laudable read about valuing “human capital” and education of the masses. He also expresses why we are not doing it in the United States.

The Democratic Party has been working for decades to use tax revenue to support our public education system. On the other hand, the Republican Party invariably works to cut taxes for the rich, which consequently depletes funding for schools. Defunding schools weakens the workforce.

It is no mystery why our economic competition is struggling against Asian countries.

Guy Vigier
San Jose

Trump’s foreign policy turns U.S. into bully

President Trump, under the guidance of Stephen Miller, has led the U.S. into a quagmire for our foreign policy.

It began with first among equals (our allies), then with Isolationism, and then to autocrats’ detente. Trump is now proposing an FY27 Department of War budget of $1.5 trillion, which will lead to a prime bully policy, whereby we accept that other nations may bully the rest of the world, as long as everyone acknowledges us as the biggest, baddest bully of them all.

These policies do not succeed each other, rather the latest policy is dominant while not excluding the others. If this all seems inchoate and self-contradictory to you, then you fully comprehend our present foreign policy situation.

John Cormode
Mountain View

Permitting reform is key to green energy

We need more energy, and 95% of the energy projects waiting for permits in our country are green energy projects. As the Trump administration puts up barriers to clean energy projects, we need to do whatever we can to remove barriers, and one solution is permitting reform. Current federal permitting rules were established in the 1960s and 1970s, before there were renewable energy projects, and they favor industries that were being built back then: oil and gas.

Let’s contact our representatives and Sens. Schiff and Padilla and ask them to co-sponsor a bill to do this.

Support real solutions that favor jobs, economic growth and enhance our global competitiveness. These are values that both Republicans and Democrats can support. And if we’ve learned anything over the last year, it is that lasting legislation is bipartisan legislation.

Elaine Salinger
San Mateo

To truly rein in ICE, vote in November

I totally support the nationwide efforts to rein in ICE and DHS, but we must remember that they are doing exactly what Donald Trump and his administration have told them to do.

They are unrestrained because, with him, we elected a sycophant Congress more than willing to kiss his ring on command. When we wave flags calling for ICE or DHS to be defunded, we are feeding directly into Trump’s populist rhetoric that we oppose law and order.

Better to use the courts to restore civility and next November, get every Democratic vote we can find to the polls and fix this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Robert Lofland
Sunnyvale

ICE sweeps keeping immigrants locked inside

In Minneapolis, people of Hispanic culture are so fearful of leaving their homes that they and their children are going without meals to the detriment of their health, and children are not taken to the doctor when sick until serious damage occurs.

Donald Trump claims that DHS and ICE agents are maintaining safety, whereas, in reality, anything but safety prevails for these victims of this insanity. Migrants who have lived here for years are important members of our labor force. They pay billions in taxes each year. Nearly 75% of those in detention have no criminal record.

In the detention center in Dilley, Texas, half of the 3,500 detainees are children, some as young as 2 years old. The children and teens are deprived of their education and the healthy experience of growing up. Enough.

Rosemary Everett
Campbell