As one who has been a contributing resident of Lake Oswego for the past 40 years, I was absolutely appalled and offended when I read of Councilor Mike Kehoe questioning the advisability of including affordable housing in the Foothills blueprint (Lake Oswego Review, July 26 — needless to say I have fallen behind in my summer reading).

Councilor Kehoe is reported as having said Lake Oswego is a place where people “work hard” to earn a chance to live here, implying those in need of affordable housing do not work hard. Such an implication boarders on ignorance, not to mention insensitivity.

A multitude of Oregonians work hard, and yet are not adequately paid. On the other hand, another multitude are overly compensated for work much less strenuous.

I wonder what Mr. Kehoe considers to be hard work? Would digging ditches and installing an underground sprinkling system qualify? That’s the hardest work I ever did, earning 75 cents an hour back in the mid-50s. Is that what qualified me for living here in Lake Oswego these past 40 years?

What about our returning veterans, who have returned home with severe emotional, mental and physical disabilities? Have they worked hard enough to earn a chance to live here? How about the widow, who invested her life in her family, raised her kids as a homemaker, was active in PTA and later invested herself in community service as a fulltime volunteer. Her husband then became ill with an incurable disease, requiring her full attentive caregiving during the remaining 24 years of his life, which eventually wiped out their life savings and investments. Did she work hard enough to earn a chance to remain living in Lake Oswego? Or is she to be ostracized from our community because she now qualifies for affordable housing?

We as a society value entertainment. We don’t value human service. If we did, there would be no need for affordable housing Mr. Kehoe, here in Lake Oswego, in Beverly Hills, in San Diego’s Rancho Santa Fe or even in Scappoose.

Forty years ago, one of the biggest drawing cards that brought our family to Lake Oswego was the wide variety of homes, ranging from the moderate “affordables” intermingled among the more luxurious. And believe it or not, they both were surrounded by green lawns and a variety of vegetation.

In more recent years we have been invaded by tickytack McMansions that all look pretty much the same, squeezed next to each other, separated by paths of barkdust; thus transforming our community into a ghetto. Undoubtedly, each McMansion has been built by or purchased by a “hard worker,” who undoubtedly has little or no time to enjoy the smell of a freshly mowed lawn or the smell of freshly cut flowers.

We who have enjoyed living in this community over the years desperately need people of all ages, races, religions, ethnicity, from various social and economic groups if we are to survive as a healthy and vibrant community.

What we don’t need are council members who oppose diversity.

George Walters is a resident of Mary’s Woods.