Voting, mask wearing, addressing homelessness: We’ve got a lot of work to do
If the quality of a state’s democracy were rated by the number of people running for office, Washington would be a five-star state. There are 19 candidates for our 10th Congressional District seat, and a wild and crazy 36 for governor.
The local voters’ pamphlet is a real page turner – all 119 pages of it.
Among the 19 candidates for the 10th District seat in Congress, we can choose from candidates whose resumes include producing “bidaily” political podcasts, consulting with craft distilleries, producing marijuana, and working as a cartographer. There are also lots of veterans, the founder of a car museum, a pastor and former personal stylist, a guy who’s worked as a truck driver, grocery clerk and day laborer, and a fish management professional, who gets special credit for using a photo with a facemask. There’s one man who says he is a “business consultant and caregiver for my mother.” And then, of course, there are the candidates who will win.
Truly, anyone can run for public office, and that is as it should be.
To check out this embarrassment of candidate riches — and make an informed voting decision — you can watch recent candidate forums on the League of Women Voters website.
You can should actually register and vote. In general, don’t procrastinate — you have a lot of reading and watching to do — but if you do, you can register and vote in person even on election day, Aug. 4.
Oh, right, that other crisis
There wasn’t much fanfare a few weeks ago when the city of Olympia issued the final report of its year-long effort, launched in March 2019, to find agreement on how to combat the crisis of homelessness.
It was an intensely citizen-driven process, with 20 community meetings, two online surveys, and an 11-member Community Work Group. Over 1,200 people participated.
The two key words that emerged were compassion and accountability. People want those who are homeless to have access to the services they need, and more trauma-informed outreach workers to help them connect to them. At the same time, homeless and housed people alike want to be safe from crime and to have their property respected. And everyone wants a safe and welcoming downtown and a healthy environment.
Achieving these goals will require more resources and community support than the city can marshal. The growth of unsanctioned tent camping is the most visible and frustrating example. Siting more managed campsites has been made impossible by overwhelming NIMBY opposition in every proposed location. The sad truth is that landowners and the city will continue to chase campers from one unsanctioned site to another.
The entire city budget would not be enough to provide all the low-cost housing and mental health and addiction treatment needed. Only the federal government has the scale of resources necessary, and it is, to put it mildly, out to lunch.
Nonetheless, the plan, called One Community, is a thoughtful and ambitious road map for providing more and better services, expanding affordable housing with money from the voter-approved Home Fund tax, and committing to consistent law enforcement that bends towards restorative justice wherever possible.
And Olympia will continue to do far more than any other local municipality to respond to the crisis of homelessness.
The plan is a good primer for anyone who wants to understand just how complex and difficult this issue is. If we were teaching high school or college classes, we would include it in the curriculum. And if we were making federal policy, we would use it as an argument for major increases in disability benefits, subsidized housing programs, job training, and universal health care that includes mental health and addiction treatment.
No summer vacation from the pandemic
Last week we learned that Washington state is in “an explosive situation” as COVID-19 transmission increases across the state.
The single exception to this growth is Yakima, which had previously been a sizzling hotspot, with outbreaks concentrated among farmworkers who live in communal housing, and among mostly Latino workers in crowded fruit packing sheds. It took a couple of strikes and an intense public health and community-based campaign to improve working conditions and public understanding of just how dangerous the virus is. Now Yakima is up to 95 percent mask-wearing.
Here in Thurston County, the Strengthening Sanctuary Alliance has been tracking the trials and tribulations of the Latino community in Yakima. One remaining problem: They need more washable, reusable face masks for children, who comprise 30 percent of the population. If you’re inclined to sew, small masks can be sent to La Casa Hogar.
So kudos to the people of Yakima, and let’s hope other Washington counties, including our own, learn from their example.