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Homeless advocates
must pool resources

Despite tireless efforts by mission-driven nonprofits, the homelessness crisis remains stubbornly persistent — largely because we’re solving in silos. Each organization measures success using its own key performance indicators, without a systemwide lens.

The result? Critical gaps in care and missed opportunities to allocate resources where they’re needed most. Imagine if we could define a universal care pathway — from “at risk” to “housed” — assign key performance indicators to each step, and map nonprofit efforts accordingly. With today’s technology, we can build a secure, unified dashboard that integrates existing tools nonprofits already use — no added data entry required. Privacy concerns? Solved — existing industry standards can be adapted.

This approach isn’t about more reporting — it’s about collective clarity. When we see the whole system in real time, we empower smarter decisions, faster action and better outcomes. To truly move the needle on homelessness, we must shift from isolated impact to shared insight.

Jagdish Girimaji
Livermore

Demand on-site
vets for rodeos

Rodeo season, alas, is upon us, an activity condemned for its inherent cruelty by nearly every animal welfare organization on Earth. Rodeo is mostly hype, a macho exercise in domination. Both Cesar Chavez and Pope Francis were vocal critics.

California boasts the nation’s most comprehensive rodeo law, Penal Code 596.7, enacted in 2000, amended in 2007 to cover the hundreds of Mexican-style rodeos called “charreadas.” The law forbids the use of electric prods in the holding chutes, and requires either an on-site or on-call veterinarian at every rodeo and charreada. The law should be amended, dropping the “on-call” vet option. Racetracks, horse shows and endurance rides all require on-site vets — so should all rodeos.

State rodeo law also requires that injury reports be submitted to the state Veterinary Medical Board. These reports are public record, free for the asking.

Let your state reps hear from you.

Eric Mills
Oakland

Media portrays Israelis
as blameless, right

Re: “2 staff members of Israeli embassy killed in DC shooting” (May 22):

The tragic killing of two Israeli embassy employees is immediately being used falsely by those advocating for the Israeli war in Gaza to prove Israel right and blameless.

It’s hard not to notice that victims of this crime, like the Israeli hostages, are portrayed in our media as full individuals we can identify with.

By contrast, the more than 100 average Palestinians killed daily by Israel (including by starvation and disease), plus dozens who lose limbs, pass by us as empty numbers.

Yet Israel uses every possibility to reassert its absolute rightness despite the carpet-bombing and starvation of civilians, which they imply has somehow been fabricated by the world media.

Israel’s government has become a horrific historic disgrace to the Jewish people worldwide, who should absolutely separate from it. It has no more allegiance to truth than Donald Trump does.

Steve Koppman
Oakland

Big Oil isn’t only party
responsible for climate

Re: “We must revive bills to make polluters pay” (Page A6, May 20).

Susan Harris’ letter wanting to sue the oil companies is presumptuous and incorrect.

The oil companies were supplying an essential service that everybody used. If you went by her theory, you would have to sue everyone who used the products to get to work and school and deliver groceries and other essentials. Everyone who heated their house and water, too. CO2 wasn’t even called a pollutant until 2009. In fact, it is an essential gas that plants need to produce oxygen for us to breathe.

The only ones that would make out are the lawyers.

Randy Dore
Pleasanton

Trump’s ‘Big Bill’ seeks
to neuter the courts

The most dangerous part of Trump’s Big Ugly Bill is a hidden provision that will prevent courts from holding Trump or any of his minions in contempt. Thus, there will no longer be any defense of our beloved Constitution or its Bill of Rights. There will no longer be any restraint on Trump or Project 2025 and MAGA zealots. Trump will become a dictator in all but name. Fascism will reign in America.

When this heinous bill comes to a vote in the Senate, I urge all Democratic representatives and senators to exit their chambers, gather on the steps outside the Capitol wearing black armbands, stand in silence as a lone trumpet intones taps, and to thus publicly mourn the end of democracy in the United States. “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people” will have perished in America — not with a bang, but a whimper.

David Ellison
Berkeley

Trump has earned
animosity aimed at him

Re: “Hatred of Trump is unhealthy for U.S.” (Page A6, May 21).

This is not the first time I’ve read a Donald Trump supporter decrying hatred of him. The hatred is real. It is justified.

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Trump is doing his best to destroy our country with his attacks on the judiciary, the press and the universities, which are not veiled threats but real. The rule of law is severely threatened by a senseless narcissist who attempted a coup and is now aiming for authoritarian rule.

He is nothing like President Ronald Reagan. Reagan had a sense of decency and an unquestioned allegiance to the Constitution. Trump is an unbalanced grifter without the barest sense of decency.

By the way, where was the outrage over the hatred for Joe Biden when he was president? “Let’s go, Brandon” still rings in my ears. Hatred for Trump is an unfortunate byproduct of his own outrageous actions.

Stephen Gutierrez
Castro Valley