Plight of the Homeless

I empathize with Jacki King and relate to what she is and has gone through. I have fallen through the same cracks. Once I was a personnel director, then owned my own business, had to sell my business because my partner and I split up, and finally returned to a personnel position in corporate America.

However, more than half of the job interviews that I went on were insulting, demeaning and lacked compassion. I wondered where and when humanism died. I was condemned for leaving corporate America and now wanted--needed--to be back in a regular job. I was told that all the work experience and education I previously had, really had no value. I was either overqualified or underqualified. And finally, I was warned that I would find it difficult returning to a regular 9-to-5 job.

Well, it has been difficult but not because it has been a 9-to-5 job. It is more because the work ethic has changed and the underlying current is “that unless you watch out for yourself, nobody else will.” To many people, it is a time of desperation, lost hope and lost dreams. If you are without a job, you are considered worthless, a failure and a “cancer.”

It is a sad commentary for the ‘80s and for this country. We seem to have forgotten our greatest asset and resource is people and we tend to place more emphasis on computers, fast-trackers, money, profits, the rich and the corrupt.

ELLEN CARROLL

Sierra Madre