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I need to respond to an April 18 letter and its vitriolic condemnation of Democrats and unionized teachers (gasp!) for low reading scores. I could go on for weeks ranting about the number of instructional hours lost to state-mandated testing. I could rant about kids who have never been taken to free, weekly story time at their neighborhood library.

What I do know is that my two children knew the ABC song before they were out of diapers, and they had library cards as soon as they could see over the checkout desk at the Northtown Anoka County Library. I wasn't so lucky. I had to wait for the bookmobile to come to the parking lot of the Coon Rapids Red Owl grocery store on Mondays in 1961, where the bookmobile librarian allowed me to exceed the six-book checkout limit for kindergartners.

Literacy is a gift that comes from the family first, and it is free. Library cards are free.

Janelle Kirkeide, Andover

The writer is a retired school librarian.

I work as a social worker with people experiencing homelessness. Many of my clients who receive SSI are understandably hesitant to move into housing support programs as they will lose nearly all their income. Some will choose to stay in an emergency shelter or in their car instead of in a program that utilizes housing support. This new policy could eliminate housing barriers and cause a better quality of life for many people receiving SSI.

Caleb S. Erickson, Minneapolis

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We learn in Economics 101 that price (rental) ceilings create inefficiencies and inequities. Artificially low rents encourage additional people to seek rental units while discouraging construction companies from producing them ("Mpls. warns against rent cap," April 15). When quantity demanded exceeds quantity supplied at artificially low rental prices, we call it a shortage. Shortages are the logical outcome of any form of price ceiling. Low-income people, people of color, people with criminal records and people with children suffer the most when landlords are choosy among the plethora of people seeking rental units.

Nevertheless, affordable housing is generally unavailable, low-income housing is scarce, and many are homeless. Solutions? The best is to attack the problem of poverty head-on by providing universal basic income (UBI) and extending the COVID-era expanded child tax credit that greatly reduced child poverty. Studies show UBI saves money by reducing the costs of poverty borne by society.

There are other options. The government could pay direct subsidies to construction companies willing to increase production of low-income housing (though some studies suggest the main beneficiaries are the construction companies). The point is that we want to expand the supply of low-income housing, whereas rental ceilings contract it.

I have one more thought, since you may wonder how the government can afford all this. Aside from reversing the 2017 tax bill (which still irks me considerably), consider the fact that homeowners on average have higher incomes than renters. Yet the federal mortgage interest deduction provides relatively high-income homeowners with $20 billion more per year overall than is provided to relatively low-income renters as housing assistance.

Granted, these are all federal programs. We will need to pressure our legislators to make the necessary changes in federal legislation. In the meanwhile, the Democratic proposal just introduced into the Minnesota House is a great beginning.

Jackie Brux, River Falls, Wis.

The writer is a professor emeritus of economics, University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Judith Albertson, Minneapolis

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City planners have acknowledged mistakes in the design of street reconstruction from Lake Street to 36th Street on Hennepin Avenue but have done nothing to rectify the issues.

Now, they have recognized the problems with the design in the completed south segment of Bryant Avenue South and are changing the plan to the northern section. Welcome to the real world!

Hopefully, they will now take a step back with the plan for Hennepin Avenue north of Lake Street and dig deeper into the many concerns that have been expressed about the plan before construction begins next year.

The inability to bring community together in person for this planning process during the height of the pandemic has led to a problematic design that will damage the vital communities that surround the corridor, the vital businesses that serve the community and impede all modes of traffic that flow to and through the area.