So impressive to see the real truth regarding the city of Santa Maria ("Embrace the change," June 28).
Approximately 600 new homes starting in the low $500,000 bracket are being built at Rice Ranch, Orcutt Hill, Bradley. What happened to affordable housing? Not to mention the impact on our infrastructure: water, gas, electricity, roads and natural environment, animals, plants, oak trees.
We are being told to not use electricity between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., let our lawns turn brown, "The New Green." All utility bills are going up, and we are continuing to fight tax increases on all the before mentioned.
And yet the county still lets the building escalate.
I am a senior on a fixed income. I own my manufactured home in a senior park and pay space rent, which goes up every year. I am also a hiker. I hike on the Santa Maria Riverbed and run into the homeless on almost a daily basis. Even with the effort of the city to get them out, more are coming.
Where are they to go?
At this point I am very close to being homeless myself, and I am not alone. Something needs to change. All the escalating costs of living are only going to make matters worse.
Someone is benefiting, let me guess ... county officials? State officials? Certainly not the masses, the other 90 percent.
