It is criminal that our City Councilors use our homeless population, that they have partially been at fault in creating, as some front for attempting to make themselves look like they are championing for them. Making homelessness a line item in our city’s budget just amplifies the point as to not having a clue as to what to do and thus making the problem a permanent item with its own ever-expanding department, unaccountable like public education, to results beyond just management.
Three main areas to consider even though they overlap: Economic, Mental Health and Drug/Alcohol Addiction. Of course, criminal record and being illegally in the US are two additional pieces of the pie.
Economic
In imposing a minimum wage base that is on its way to $15.00, the $7.50 entry level jobs that many of our homeless would gladly take are gone. Along with that, a job that was done before by two $7.50 employees pushed small business employers to rid themself of one or possibly both putting them out on the street with no viable skills to market in a $15.00 environment. This locked our lower echelon high school graduates out of entry level work.
Mental Health
Starting in the 1980s, state run psychiatric hospitals have been closed leaving our mentally disadvantaged to bounce from street to jail back to street and from town to town over and over with no means for them to get care. This is a State problem that needs the State Legislature to address. The City should file suit against the state for its failure to exercise due diligence.
Drug/Alcohol Addiction
Has much to do with despondency, which ties back into the previous two, and can also be directly associated with the failure of NM schools, including Las Cruces, to adequately prepare children for the real world of work. I am confounded as to why, from the outset of covid, alcohol sales were not restricted, and the State pushed further into green lighting recreational marijuana use.
Criminal record ties to the fact that once a felon always a felon which should be abolished and illegal alien is obvious as to its remedy.
Solutional Thought
1) Pressure the LCPS to close failing schools and replace them with quality minded, student centric public charter schools. 2) Create an attractive business friendly environment that brings businesses in that are not majority minimum wage employers. 3) Sue the state on mental health care issue. Demand psychiatric hospitals in Albuquerque and Las Cruces. 4) Fund an involuntary inpatient drug and alcohol treatment program that matches our city’s needs 5) Get rid of any reference as to our city being a welcoming place for illegal aliens or for that matter any other criminal elements.
With all five of those on the front lines of our City Leaders, we the populace would have good reason to be proud of our city and its desire to stand up and care for the ones who are truly in need and the ones that live here and make it flourish.
Rob Wood
