The Tribune Editorial Board opens its April 15 editorial with: “Homelessness is punishing in itself without the fear of being fined or arrested simply for surviving outdoors.”

Despite this, the editorial (“Before adding new rules on homelessness, let’s enforce the ones we have”) reaches for reasons to oppose HB1429, a bill that would stop those very same punishing fines and arrests.

The 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision Grants Pass v. Johnson authorized municipalities to penalize life-sustaining activities like resting, eating or staying warm in public spaces. Over 40 Illinois municipalities have since adopted these harmful policies, while many simultaneously fought to prevent social service providers from helping people survive and transition out of homelessness. Grants Pass removed a constitutional floor of protection. This bill would restore that protection for Illinoisans.

These penalties had long been considered violations of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment until this Supreme Court — the same court that overturned Roe v. Wade, reaffirmed racial profiling and gutted environmental protections — stripped that protection away.

The editorial correctly notes that municipalities will still be able to move encampments under HB1429. Ultimately, HB1429 is a compromise, balancing protections for unhoused people with tools to address genuine safety concerns. This successful balancing led the Illinois Parks Association and the Northwest Municipal Conference to withdraw their original opposition to the bill.

We’re all facing the reality that it’s increasingly difficult to make ends meet in Illinois and across the country. Until we address the extreme shortage of affordable housing, people need a place to go. Levying fines and arrests is not a solution. As the editorial asserts, when one encampment closes, people are displaced to a new location — that’s because they have no other options.

In our districts in suburban Cook County, a single adult waits an average of 117 days to get emergency shelter. In Chicago, after calling 311, many people wait days or weeks for a bed to open up.

The editorial board fails to acknowledge what we have long known as the solution to homelessness — housing and supportive services. Instead of opposing this bill, we wish more Illinoisans — and editorial boards — would join us in advocacy to prevent the J.B. Pritzker administration’s proposed cuts of nearly $40 million to the state’s homelessness budget over the past two years.

Fines and arrests just make a precarious situation worse. Housing and support services bring stability.

Let’s focus on solutions, not kicking people when they are already down.

— State Rep. Kevin John Olickal, D-Skokie; Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, D-Chicago; Rep. Dagmara Avelar, D-Romeoville; Rep. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights; and House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch

I lost a preterm son to NEC

Dr. Alexander Crider’s recent op-ed “There is a hidden cost to the Abbott verdict for premature babies” (April 17) resonated deeply with me. My perspective comes from the experience of a parent who lost a child to necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC.

In 1998, I gave birth to triplet sons almost 13 weeks early. Like many parents of preemies, we were thrust into a world of daily highs and lows. Despite the uncertainty, their prognosis seemed excellent for the first month of their lives.

Tragically, everything changed when David — ironically, our healthiest son — contracted NEC. He passed away at just 32 days old, less than 36 hours after falling ill. David had received only breast milk. Meanwhile, his brothers, who received both breast milk and infant formula, did not develop the disease.

NEC is a mysterious and devastating gastrointestinal emergency. As a parent who lived through this nightmare, I understand the desperate search for answers. The “could haves, should haves and would haves” can become paralyzing. However, it scares me that litigation may limit access to one of the tools that can help these vulnerable babies survive.

As Crider states, formula is often a necessary “medical bridge” when mother’s milk is unavailable or insufficient. Anything that threatens the availability of preterm formula doesn’t just impact companies; it impacts the infants who rely on that nutrition and the parents sitting in the neonatal intensive care unit today, desperate for their children to grow and come home.

We need more research and better access to all nutritional options, not fewer tools in the hands of the doctors trying to save lives.

— Elizabeth Becker, Deerfield

Stadium deals serve owners

Regarding Juan Ochoa’s op-ed “Don’t let Indiana steal the Bears and our meal ticket” (April 10): I lived in Houston from 1980 to 2000. If you weren’t a Cowboys fan, you were an Oilers fan. Warren Moon and Earl Campbell jerseys could be seen all over Houston. Texans love their football.

During the 1980s, Oilers owner Bud Adams threatened to move the team to Jacksonville, Florida, if Houston did not renovate the Astrodome so he could have luxury suites. The community panicked and voted to give him $100 million to do what he wanted. After a number of years, he wanted a new stadium built with taxpayer funds. If he didn’t get what he wanted, he said, he was going to move the team. Studies conducted by Rice University economics professors showed that a NFL team had minimal financial impact on a community and that, with about eight games at home during a season, if an owner wants a new stadium, he or she should do it at their own expense.

The Houston Sports Authority and the taxpayers told Adams that if he didn’t like the answer, to move his team wherever he could get a deal to his liking. He picked up the phone and talked to Nashville, Tennessee, because it was willing to do anything to get a NFL franchise. Thus, the Tennessee Titans were born.

Adams made sure that the NFL would never let another franchise use the Oilers name or logo. That’s because Houston taxpayers said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again, shame on me.”

NFL owners are only loyal to the paper with dollar signs printed on them.

Good luck to Arlington Heights. I hope the village gets what it thinks it’s getting. If it lets the Bears weasel out of paying their fair share of taxes, the community will have to compensate for the difference.

— Raymond E. Partyka, Glenview

A right to petition government

The photograph accompanying an April 21 op-ed (“History tells us that school vouchers segregate and alienate”) is extremely disturbing. It shows an Illinois state trooper apparently blocking entry into the building housing Gov. JB Pritzker’s Loop office to a representative of a public interest group peaceably attempting to deliver a letter to the governor that seeks to influence his decision on a matter of grave importance. Its caption explains the trooper told her she would have to mail it.

The image clearly suggests she was being denied entry.

If the Tribune’s portrayal is accurate, that is astonishing. What on earth could possess the Illinois State Police or the governor to take such a disturbing action so directly contrary to the Constitution’s First Amendment? The amendment expressly prohibits laws (and implicitly, governmental actions) “abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

How can the action shown in that photo possibly be squared with that?

— Frank Stachyra, Oak Park

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