Investors are squeezing out middle-class homebuyers in Charlotte

Charlotte housing

How can Charlotte fix its housing market shortage? (March 2) Let’s address the elephant in the room: Investors are coming in with wads of cash buying up homes at an alarming rate, then renting or flipping them for an outrageous amount.

A UNCC Urban Institute study shows investors own more than 11,000 middle-class homes in Charlotte. Affordable, single-family homes — the ones we need most — and are buying more daily. If investors had been in the market like this when GIs came home from WWII, we wouldn’t have a middle class today.

Instead of buying “land banks” with taxpayer money, Charlotte City Council should research homesteading laws and other measures that would keep domestic and foreign investment companies from devastating our middle-class housing market. A little research and a few new laws would cost a lot less than anything Council is currently considering.

Sandra Holyfield, Charlotte

Disruptive kids

Regarding “Disruptive behavior is rising in our kids,” (March 1 Opinion):

While trauma and stress contribute to inappropriate behavior in children, the response requires more than empathy. Enforce discipline, structure and consequences.

These are children. To improve brain development, concentration and ability to cope they need outlets for their energy and frustrations. In the past 30 years school systems have reduced requirements for physical education and limited opportunities for self-expression through art, drama, music and craftsmanship.

Forget blocked scheduling. Go back to year-long, 50-minute classes which are better suited to students’ attention spans. Introduce intramural sports. Give students a chance to release their emotions through fine arts. It’s incredible what these kids can do when given alternatives.

Cathy DeCostanza, Matthews

Russia must pay

When Russia is finally driven out of Ukraine, it should be held accountable for Ukraine reconstruction costs. To partially fund reconstruction, all Russian foreign currency assets and other physical assets, currently totaling over $600 billion, now frozen, should be held for reparations, never to be returned to Russia. The United Nations, NATO, or an appointed war crimes tribunal should be in charge of imposing this principle.

Lee Fluke, Charlotte

Support for Putin

In the 1960s and ‘70s, when students were protesting the Vietnam War, Republicans condemned them with the chant “America, love it or leave it.” How things have changed, as some Republicans now vocally support former President Trump’s admiration for Putin. At least Republicans’ actions during Vietnam aimed to further democracy. Now some party members seem perfectly willing to destroy democracy and support authoritarians. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave.

Donna Hatfield, Cornelius

Biden, gas prices

Now that Putin has invaded Ukraine, the U.S. has put in place economic sanctions against Russia and several of its oligarchs. At the same time the U.S. continues to import about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia. This makes absolutely no sense.

Some Americans could soon be paying over $5 a gallon for gasoline. Why isn’t President Biden removing restrictions on oil and gas production and causing U.S. oil and gas companies to produce more so that we may stop importing from Russia, which would cause Russia further economic harm?

Craig A. Reutlinger, Charlotte

Guns to Ukraine

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this country, awash in guns, would voluntarily send those AK-47’s to Ukraine. We could sleep well and take a tax deduction. U.S. for Ukraine!

Murray Whisnant, Charlotte

Supreme Court

President Biden goofed by nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, even though she is highly qualified. He should have played politics and nominated S.C. Judge J. Michelle Childs. Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would have supported Childs, as would have 10 other Republicans. This would have saved Biden a bruising confirmation fight. Graham may be right in saying that only the Harvard elite get nominated to the Supreme Court.

Augie Beasley, Charlotte

Healthcare costs

My primary care physician spends $98,000 a year on malpractice premiums and has never been sued. So yes, until such groups that have a solely financial interest in our healthcare system are removed, the U.S. will continue to pay twice as much for healthcare as any other industrialized nation. And universal health care with options can work, France does it.

Two recent Forum writers suggested universal healthcare would cost employees and employers less. That’s the same supply and demand economics used when President Obama famously said the ACA would “reduce the cost of healthcare.”

We need to fix the U.S. healthcare system, but let’s not fool ourselves with what happens with costs, access and quality when you add millions of units of demand and do absolutely nothing to the supply.

Tom Spencer, Waxhaw