At least one councilman, Mike Henline, has received criticism for comments he made pertaining to adding another low income housing project to the city. His comment was something to the effect of we want people who are "an asset to the community, not a burden to the community." Kudos to Mr. Henline for stating the facts.

Sure there are the working poor who need help and are assets to the community but the experience we've all had around here is that there are fewer truly needy and far more deadbeats who are a liability to the community.

Developers will say anything to get their foot in the door. We've seen that over and over. Hopefully this developer is telling the truth and his low income apartment complex will be just what he said.

I recently had the opportunity to do some maintenance work in one of our local offices where the poor get their handouts. While there, there was a steady stream of applicants but one group caught my attention.

Three clients came in to get their handouts. Grandmother, daughter and granddaughter. Three generations, soon to be four. Grandma and daughter were already in the system and receiving handouts including food stamps and housing in one of our more notorious low income apartment complexes. Grand daughter, now pregnant, was there to get signed up for her handouts. None had jobs.

All had their cell phones, all had ample tattoos and grand daughter had multi colored rainbow hair. The dispute was as to the where grand daughter lived and whether she was married. If married and not living in the square, her benefits would be much less. Of course, mother and grandmother knew well how to coach grand daughter on her answers to maximize her benefits.

We know there are truly needy folks out there and being the benevolent society we are, we want to help those. Unfortunately, the whole welfare system has become a way of life for an awful lot of deadbeats. For many, like the ones mentioned above, have turned welfare into a career and a way of life at the expense of the rest of us.

Welfare was meant to be a hand up not a hand out, a safety net not a permanent hammock.

I'll be glad to say it. NO, we don't need anymore of those kind of people.