Letters to the Editor

Opening doors to the riffraff

I was initially happy to read that new subsidized housing is going to be built for teachers in Santa Clara (Opinion, June 26).

Finally, we will no longer have to step gingerly over sleeping forms huddled under old handouts in the doorways of businesses or avert our eyes at busy intersections from the doleful faces of hungry educators. But stop and think: Do we really want teacher ghettos in our neighborhoods? Picture gangs of young teachers hanging out on every corner discussing orbital spin and quadratic equations. What happens when your children go to the local park only to find sonnets and historical essays scrawled all over the playground equipment? Imagine your horror when your little girl tells you that a nice man on the corner is giving out free protractors.

Don't get me wrong -- I like teachers. Some of my best friends are teachers. But do we really want their kind living among us? I mean, opening our kids' eyes to the wonder and complexity of the world around them is all well and good (and it keeps the little buggers busy all day while we pursue our own careers), but all this ``teaching'' does nothing to enhance the culture of unbridled greed and self-aggrandizement that is the hallmark of our Silicon Valley. And why should teachers get a handout for shelter when the rest of us have had to work weeks, even months, to amass the bloated fortunes to buy our own modest estates (my Ford Behemoth barely fits in my garage)?

If teachers get cheap homes, it will only encourage more teachers to relocate here. And not just teachers, either. Affordable housing will bring in all sorts of riffraff -- janitors, bus drivers, artists, nurses, crafts people, firefighters, shopkeepers, social workers and police officers. And then what kind of a community will we have?