developers

The answer to your Nov. 28 editorial, "Seniors Not Wanted?" is, "yes," if they can afford to buy their apartments when converted to condos. "No," if they can't. And most can't.

Condo-converters and landlords don't care who buys their condos as long as somebody does. If seniors can't afford to buy, then it's "legal" to evict them.

If developers have to evict low-income seniors they'll do it, they are doing it, and Seattle rubber-stamps the evictions. Such as the Northlake Group (who "build and renovate boutique condominium homes") seeking to buy Lock Vista Apartments in Ballard. The "collateral damage" of getting rid of 192 tenants for condo-conversion doesn't bother the developers.

If the state and city legislatures and the mayor and governor don't sanction evicting seniors, low and middle-incomers from their homes, why don't they act, instead of ignoring the situation, lamenting the situation, or throwing up their hands?

Why did state legislators enact skewed condo laws detrimental to tenants in the first place? Don't the legislators see (or do they?) the effect condo-conversion laws have on the poor? Or are they are subservient to the construction and condo-conversion industries and their lobbyists.

If eviction without cause is the norm in a democratic society, in a state led by Democrats, I shudder to think how Republicans would govern.

Bob Miller

Ballard