The implication from your story "Good kids die, too" is that the rest
of the folks who live in the downtown east side are "bad kids" or
somehow less worthy of our sympathy than this attractive Caucasian
girl from a so-called "good family."

No one deserves to live in grinding poverty and degradation.

All the young people in the downtown east side are "good kids." All
the people in the area are worthy of respect and dignity.

Life is increasingly difficult in the downtown east side, where
everyone started out as a "good kid." The lives that end with
overdose, murder, AIDS, or Hepatitis C are no less tragic if they are
the lives of third-generation welfare recipients.

By all means publish articles about life in the downtown east side, a
neighbourhood under siege and people who try to make a life there. And
publish articles that explain what readers are doing -- or can do --
to make a difference.

Remember that all folks there are worthy, not just the young, white
kids from the suburbs.

Erin Graham, VANCOUVER