For over two years, with the help of my daughter, my property has been home to several low-income folks who had trouble finding housing in Port Townsend. Now, for personal reasons, and because of escalating property tax and maintenance costs, I need to sell my home.

On the way to making this decision, I discovered it’s a code violation to use a home on wheels as housing even for a limited time. Parked on my property is such a home. We lived in it comfortably while our house was built. Yet now, with an affordable housing crisis in the city, I face a $500-a-day fine if I allow someone to use this it as a temporary home.

In shops, hotels and restaurants, there are hard-working young people who can’t find a place to live. Young professionals who work in social services or at the hospital are only slightly better off. We depend upon them, yet we make no housing provision for them. How can we penalize property owners who try to provide small but safe homes for these people? It simply doesn’t make sense.

Our exorbitant property tax increases have added to the problem by making it difficult for seniors to offer homes in which they no longer live as affordable housing.

There are solutions. The city could relax restrictions on the use of wheeled homes as housing, or it could make a set of simple guidelines for property owners who want to offer sheds, garages, Gypsy wagons and other safe places as temporary homes. Or it could arrange with [Fort Worden] to use one of their buildings as a hostel.

It certainly doesn’t serve us well to turn our backs on these decent, hard-working young people with a shrug of the shoulders and a “tough luck.”

HANNAH RUSSELL

Port Townsend