Will profits win out over compassion in senior housing?

We appreciate your article ``Tenants are facing rent hike," in Globe North on Oct. 1.

We would like to add a few points about Massachusetts senior housing:

Massachusetts Senior Action Council, the leading state wide advocacy group for seniors and people with disabilities, is fully engaged in supporting the tenants at Heritage Housing in Malden.

The article refers to an increase of rent that was to occur on Oct. 1 and quoted a US Housing and Urban Development spokesperson as saying that there are going to be several stages of rent increases. In fact, the total rent increases could be 35 percent of the tenants' current total rent.

Comparable rent increases have already occurred in places such as Springfield, Lowell, Somerville, and Boston for low-income or disabled seniors who cannot afford rent hikes.

For the most part, these tenants' income is from their Social Security checks, supplemented in some of their cases by small pensions.

The rent increase threatens the core lifestyle of these people, which is clearly evident by the 70 vacant apartments in the 208-unit complex in Malden.

We as Massachusetts citizens clearly have a choice: Do we continue to help support the poorest and most fragile segment of our society, or do we allow profit to be our only guiding principle ?

Kenneth Goldstein
President, Metro North chapter,
Massachusetts Senior Action Council