Listening

You can’t fix a problem if you don’t understand it and you can’t understand it if you aren’t willing to talk about it.

The city’s new public health director, Dr. Anthony Turner, scheduled community-wide listening sessions throughout the month of July, covering all six of the city council districts. They were advertised to invite residents to “share thoughts, concerns, and ideas about important issues affection our community” including topics such as “homelessness, mental health [and] substance abuse.”

If you’ve driven around Las Cruces lately, the problem is growing. No wordsmithing or illusion can argue with the sheer number of homeless people staggering about, clearly under the influence of substances. These people need help and our community needs to start addressing it.

Hiring the public health director was a step in the right direction. His salary was funded by a grant from the state to study and report on the root causes of homelessness specifically in our community. He has sat with business owners to learn about their experiences, he has studied the statistics in our area and he has asked for the details of what the city has tried already.

The next logical step would be to talk to residents. No one person has all the answers, so statistically, the more people you talk to during a study, the more details, nuances and ideas you have to collect, distill, and share toward a better outcome.

And yet, a few days after the city announced the listening sessions, they were abruptly “postponed.” No explanation and no date for re-scheduling. Questions as to why have gone unanswered.

It is a slap in the face. Let’s invest money in this position, this study, in the name of understanding the problem further, enhancing our care methods and saving lives, only to hamstring it by removing the public’s input. Tease us with being able to provide our opinions and experiences, only to yank it away without explanation.

Those who are living it every day, by finding needles on playgrounds and being accosted at their businesses, couldn’t possibly have anything to contribute to the conversation. It begs the question: how badly does the city really want to solve this problem?

I look forward to the city rescheduling the listening sessions, but this is me not holding my breath. I look forward to being proven wrong.

In the meantime, I will share here the contact information for the public health director that was originally shared and remains on the postponement post on the city’s Facebook page. His name is Dr. Anthony Turner, and he can be reached at 575-541-2189 or anturner@lascruces.gov.

If you have an opinion, experience or question on the stated topic(s), I encourage you to reach out to him. Everyone has something to contribute, whether it is a resident, business owner, former homeless individual or are currently experiencing homelessness or drug addiction. No one can take away your lived experiences. We are all experts at the life we’ve lived. And you should be able to share them to help others that are not as far down the path. You just may have the key to helping someone else.

Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.