To the Editor,

Surely, the Urban Mission was aware in advance of the lack of funds it needed to continue to keep the shelters open. Somebody, anybody and nobody. There was an important job to be done. Everybody was sure somebody would do it. Anybody could do it and nobody did. The bottom line is that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did what anybody could have. Well, somebody get busy.

Open the church basement — take the beds from the shelter and Martha Manor and set them up in the basement. Memory serves there’s a kitchen there. You have that box truck — use it to move beds. Utilize the homeless, who can load the truck. Whatever happened to the other properties? What’s up with the million-dollar old Kroger building in the Seventh Street Plaza? There’s more than enough room there to set up beds. A makeshift kitchen could be made — at the least by using microwave ovens and by bringing in coffeemakers. The War Memorial Building has room.

Get the Steubenville Fire Department out with their with their plastic buckets on Sunset Boulevard to collect coins. That would be a start toward being able to shelter people in the church and to pay for food, electricity and the water bill. The bathroom facilities might not be up to offering showers, but a bathroom sink is doable. You could sell drawing tickets. I don’t know off the top of my head what the prizes could be. They could have a Vegas night along with a silent auction. There are 101 things that can be done.

We have Hands Across America, so why can’t we have Hands Across the Tri-State Area? It’s too late to ask how this happened, but we need to get busy asking, “What can I do?”

Don’t even say these people need to get a job — that opens another can of worms that I can writer another 250-word essay about.

Juanita Lindgren

Weirton