As Clallam County prepares a taxpayer-funded messaging push to defend harm reduction, questions grow about whether officials are prioritizing spin over measurable results
Even If I wasn't Hans Gruber I would be saying hit it again.
The homeless issue has always been looked at through a bureaucratic lens, as in how much bureaucracy can we create off of this issue. The past make=up of these homeless boards just don't want to have the tough conversations that lead away from the bureaucracy.
Its obvious they would have put Jake or I on that board already but they want to stack the deck in favor of bureaucracy.
I once did a public records request to the Washington State Department of Commerce for all "homeless" related grants for the entire agency records keeping schedule which is a time period of 6 years. There were 6,100 some grants related to "homelessness." The amount of funding was astounding, and it all went to a clipboard bureaucracy. Questionnaires at the federal county and city level, and printing of thousands of non-profit brochures. That was and probably still is their "homelessness" strategy.
No hard decisions.. no useable infrastructure. They convinced themselves that the outpatient model and clipboard bureaucracy was the way to go. Basically nothing but govement roster spots year after year. The only solution that will ever come out of these boards and committees will be through the bureaucracy lens. One that fill the blue pages of the phone book and that deals with the problem at bureaucratic armlengths.
That bureaucratic decision to not add beds to Western or Medical lake was the beginning of the current problem. We had facilities' and staff in an inpatient model and we just needed to add on to it. Keep the asylum where an asylum belongs...not in open air.
The remainder of the homeless population needs tough love and a kick in the pants not coddling from an overpaid aloof bureaucrat from a 200 grand a year ivory tower. All that salary for 20 years could have built wonderful facilities with ex Canadian football leaguers ready to keep someone from getting it " strait to the chin" and hitting the back of their head on concrete...Like Richard Madeo.
Call me a "mis-informed" Luddite, but this situation is ridiculous. Stop the harm reduction crap. It doesn't work. It encourages more users to come to this county; in encourages more using, more trashing of our once-beautiful environment, and more criminal behavior. And as Mr. Worthington has pointed out clearly, sometimes, someone completely innocent, loses his precious life. Berry is a Liar, and anyone involved in this ruse should be held accountable - fired by the Public.
Thinking along the same lines Jen. A user is going to use with a clean needle, a dirty needle, a shared needle or broken needle. The user must get that drug into a vein!!! Arm, between the toes, in the anus, in the waist, just shoot it up!
The “market” for intravenous injected drugs in Clallam County is a business model El Chapo would be proud of. The availability, the locations, the quantity, the quality, the syringes and a customer base that will purchase your product no matter what the price. Bang for the buck. Man-o-man have “they” got this County figured out.
Do the statistics credit the drop of deaths due to a SUPPLY SHORTAGE of illicit fentanyl considering that Fentanyl is now increasingly found in non-opioid drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, which is driving up overdoses among users of those drugs? Is it due to their programs or Trump’s stopping the influx of these drugs? Can’t overdose if you don’t have the product to overdose on. Can’t become addicted if there is nothing to be addicted to.
I have yet to hear the proposal by any of the NGO’s or Commissioners to increase funding for policing and arresting those that are openly selling in our parking lots and back street alleys. Cut the supply off, enforce laws and Clallam County can turn off it’s neon welcome light AND defund these programs and close down the worst of the worst, the MAT clinic.
WE DO HAVE THE US BORDER PATROL RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. ARE THEY BEING UNDERUTILIZED?
Address:
Port Angeles Border Patrol Station
110 South Penn Street
Port Angeles, WA 98362
Phone: (360) 565-7300
Fax: (360) 565-7325
History and Area of Responsibility
The Port Angeles Border Patrol Station is located on Washington States' Olympic Peninsula, approximately seventy (70) air miles west-northwest of Seattle, and eighteen (18) miles south of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
As the primary federal law enforcement agency between the ports-of-entry, the Border Patrol's mission is to prevent the entry of terrorists and their weapons of terrorism: to enforce the laws that protect America's homeland by the DETECTION, INTERDICTION, and APPREHENSION OF THOSE WHO ATTEMPT to illegally enter or smuggle any person or CONTRABAND across our Nation's sovereign borders.
Even If I wasn't Hans Gruber I would be saying hit it again.
The homeless issue has always been looked at through a bureaucratic lens, as in how much bureaucracy can we create off of this issue. The past make=up of these homeless boards just don't want to have the tough conversations that lead away from the bureaucracy.
Its obvious they would have put Jake or I on that board already but they want to stack the deck in favor of bureaucracy.
I once did a public records request to the Washington State Department of Commerce for all "homeless" related grants for the entire agency records keeping schedule which is a time period of 6 years. There were 6,100 some grants related to "homelessness." The amount of funding was astounding, and it all went to a clipboard bureaucracy. Questionnaires at the federal county and city level, and printing of thousands of non-profit brochures. That was and probably still is their "homelessness" strategy.
No hard decisions.. no useable infrastructure. They convinced themselves that the outpatient model and clipboard bureaucracy was the way to go. Basically nothing but govement roster spots year after year. The only solution that will ever come out of these boards and committees will be through the bureaucracy lens. One that fill the blue pages of the phone book and that deals with the problem at bureaucratic armlengths.
That bureaucratic decision to not add beds to Western or Medical lake was the beginning of the current problem. We had facilities' and staff in an inpatient model and we just needed to add on to it. Keep the asylum where an asylum belongs...not in open air.
The remainder of the homeless population needs tough love and a kick in the pants not coddling from an overpaid aloof bureaucrat from a 200 grand a year ivory tower. All that salary for 20 years could have built wonderful facilities with ex Canadian football leaguers ready to keep someone from getting it " strait to the chin" and hitting the back of their head on concrete...Like Richard Madeo.
Very well stated, thank you.
Call me a "mis-informed" Luddite, but this situation is ridiculous. Stop the harm reduction crap. It doesn't work. It encourages more users to come to this county; in encourages more using, more trashing of our once-beautiful environment, and more criminal behavior. And as Mr. Worthington has pointed out clearly, sometimes, someone completely innocent, loses his precious life. Berry is a Liar, and anyone involved in this ruse should be held accountable - fired by the Public.
Thinking along the same lines Jen. A user is going to use with a clean needle, a dirty needle, a shared needle or broken needle. The user must get that drug into a vein!!! Arm, between the toes, in the anus, in the waist, just shoot it up!
The “market” for intravenous injected drugs in Clallam County is a business model El Chapo would be proud of. The availability, the locations, the quantity, the quality, the syringes and a customer base that will purchase your product no matter what the price. Bang for the buck. Man-o-man have “they” got this County figured out.
Do the statistics credit the drop of deaths due to a SUPPLY SHORTAGE of illicit fentanyl considering that Fentanyl is now increasingly found in non-opioid drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, which is driving up overdoses among users of those drugs? Is it due to their programs or Trump’s stopping the influx of these drugs? Can’t overdose if you don’t have the product to overdose on. Can’t become addicted if there is nothing to be addicted to.
I have yet to hear the proposal by any of the NGO’s or Commissioners to increase funding for policing and arresting those that are openly selling in our parking lots and back street alleys. Cut the supply off, enforce laws and Clallam County can turn off it’s neon welcome light AND defund these programs and close down the worst of the worst, the MAT clinic.
WE DO HAVE THE US BORDER PATROL RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. ARE THEY BEING UNDERUTILIZED?
Address:
Port Angeles Border Patrol Station
110 South Penn Street
Port Angeles, WA 98362
Phone: (360) 565-7300
Fax: (360) 565-7325
History and Area of Responsibility
The Port Angeles Border Patrol Station is located on Washington States' Olympic Peninsula, approximately seventy (70) air miles west-northwest of Seattle, and eighteen (18) miles south of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
As the primary federal law enforcement agency between the ports-of-entry, the Border Patrol's mission is to prevent the entry of terrorists and their weapons of terrorism: to enforce the laws that protect America's homeland by the DETECTION, INTERDICTION, and APPREHENSION OF THOSE WHO ATTEMPT to illegally enter or smuggle any person or CONTRABAND across our Nation's sovereign borders.