Sound Off: Renters, critics and supporters

The following is what our readers sounded off about this week:

Coming to St. Charles and robbing us
With the rash of robberies of the Subways and all of the fast-food places, why do they stay open so late? You get people coming into St. Charles and robbing. These people do not live in St. Charles. And then, the downtown project of St. Charles wants to have rental units? They're just going to move in there and go across the street and rob someplace. You don't want rental units in the downtown St. Charles area. You want people to own property and take care of their kids and grow. All of these other people are just coming to St. Charles and robbing us. We don't want those kind of people living here.

Sticking up for the renters
Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011, you had two [Sound Off items], "We don't want this in our community," and "Think of the children," about rentals of apartments. Most apartments, you have to pass a security check, you have to have security on your money and, sometimes, when you buy a house you don't know who your neighbors are. In a house, you could raise your own marijuana. I don't believe this is true of renters. They are checked out much more than when you buy a house. And Geneva has their problems, and so does St. Charles. Maybe we should run out the taverns we have in town. That brings in the undesirable people. I don't appreciate what was said about renters.

No more handouts
It's Christmas Eve, and I'm reading in the paper where people in St. Charles don't want renters. I'm reading where we should tax the rich. We should do all this stuff in the name of helping everybody else. I grew up poor. We had an outhouse and no running water in our house until I was about 9 or 10 years old. And we were renting. And our Christmases were pretty happy despite all of this. We worked hard. As kids, we chopped wood, we did errands. We did everything we could to get a nickel or a dime or a quarter and get a present or get something to make a present for our family members. I don't understand all this stuff. If this country is supposed to be a democracy and a capitalist country, and I know that everybody says, no, it's not a democracy, it's different from that. But if we're supposed to have freedom, then the rich people have an incentive to work hard to get rich. Many of them, if you read their stories, did not get there with a silver spoon in their mouth. Many of them worked 50 hours a week. Many of the newspaper magnates started out polishing shoes and had 50 cents in their pocket. There is no incentive today for anybody to do anything more than to beg for handouts. And the handouts come. It's sad to me that there are people lining up to get free toys, and they drive better cars than we have. They come to this country illegally, and they get a stipend. And we taxpayers, people who work and have pride in our country and pride in ourselves have to work very hard. We don't get $300 to $900 a month as a stipend. And our children are citizens. They weren't born to illegal immigrants. They were born to people who have generations here. I think the Christmas spirit needs to be changed around a little bit. We have to tax illegal immigrants and we need to start making people work who are capable to work. If people are truly handicapped and can't move, I don't have a problem with helping them if they're truly sick. But a lot of these people are just unwilling to work. They are looking for a handout, and I've seen enough of them. I cook for the homeless, and I have given people things. And I've stopped giving stuff. I make people work for what they want or do something to help someone else, even if they do volunteer work. It makes it better for them.