I was both amused and saddened by the picture of the “resident” individual taking a cigarette break while Tent City was moving; amused because apparently being impoverished means never having to run out of a 4 or 5-dollar pack of cigarettes or smoking tobacco, and saddened that both government and society continue to enable this type of self-destructive behavior. Along with drugs and alcohol, smoking should be prohibited in Tent Cities, and the money instead used for food and nutrition. Old habits, like cigarette smoking and living off charity, it appears, are hard to break.

John Navroth, Kirkland