To the editor:

I am a law-abiding citizen who goes to work, pays my bills and keeps my home in the historic district in a clean and orderly fashion. This week, my home was broken into by some of the neighborhood boys who had been suspended from school.

These young men watched me load my dogs to take them to the vet, and then entered my home while I was at work and my children were at school, taking a PlayStation, cash from the children’s piggy banks, a Kindle, cell phone and lighters.

This is what happens when children are put out of school and left at home to their own devices. The rest of us pay for their lack of home training and supervision.

How about community service trash pick-up in the parks, at school or on the roadsides? How about planting plants in the medians for community beautification?

If these children can’t attend school, because they can’t behave, then it is time to give them a skill and put them to work. A person who has no self-worth and self-respect is doomed to fail.

I would be willing to spearhead this program and find a way to bring these children to a better place in life. It takes a village to raise a child.

I am not wealthy, and I work hard for what I have. I teach my children that respect for all, truth, honoring their word, never judging and having a relationship with God are the keys to a happy, healthy life.

Last year, my son was bullied on the bus, and not much was done. Those children were allowed to ride the bus as if it were a right, not a privilege.

Once again if a child is not fit for public, why do we all have to pay?

I bought a house in a neighborhood that just 12 months ago was a safe and cozy place. Now we have juvenile delinquents running around, drugs being sold in the streets, vagrants wandering and homeowners like me wondering when the city will take a stand and stop bowing down and turning a blind eye to the slumlords who continue to rent rundown apartment to the dregs of the Earth.

As a community, we all want better. We want our children to play and run joyously around the neighborhood. We want to live in this adorable little peanut town with beautiful homes and great restaurants. We want to attend the schools, because despite what you hear, the schools are great.

The city is allowing what could very well be Suffolk’s Ghent to become Suffolk’s ghetto.

Kathleen Kerschl

Suffolk