Home Bases

The recommendation by a government commission to close 85 military installations, including two in Southern California, need not be perceived as a calamity in the surrounding communities but as an opportunity to tackle a larger social ill.

The installations, which are equipped to house and provide services for large numbers of people, could be renovated without great expense to become multi-service centers for the homeless--providing housing, medical facilities, job placement and training, veterans’ assistance, alcohol rehabilitation services, etc.--much as the Weingart Center does on Skid Row in Los Angeles.

What it takes for this kind of peacetime conversion--to turn military bases into home bases--is a willingness on the part of local and federal governments to cut through the miles of red tape decommissioning involves and simply get it done. The process could take weeks or months, rather than years.

The need is great in many of these communities already. The willingness to face that need, and the compassion to act upon it, is supported now by the opportunity to convert surplus facilities into working centers for the homeless.

What a marvelous chance for a new Administration to act upon its leader’s vision of a “kinder” America.

MAXENE JOHNSTON

President

Weingart Center Assn.

Los Angeles