“The poor we have always with us…” the holy book says. But sometimes things happen that are just so beyond the reckoning of men that lives and communities are destroyed. Wars and insurrection in our backyards, change of climate, and pandemics, for instance. All of which happen to be threatening, at the moment, or already here.
I’ve learned that there’s not universal agreement on this, but me and most of my friends believe that at moments of great crisis the government we elect to serve us is supposed to step in and do what they can to help resolve the problems.
I sure hope this works out, because there’s a problem simmering in Washington County that needs our attention friends. There are thousands of people struggling in this county, many already facing eviction because of covid. Thousands. And the number of already-homeless people is growing.
Did you know that our county is sitting on CARES Act money intended to help people? Most of the last $4.5 million we received is already sitting there, and another $7.1 is supposed to open up next week. Our county Judge, J. Woods, is apparently not good at figuring out how to take money and turning it into help. Remember how he sat on money for the Crisis Stabilization Unit until the state threatened to take the money away? We re-elected him anyway for some reason.
That’s likely why Sheriff Tim Helder figured he might as well ask for nearly $500,000 of the first pot for security equipment. (What?!) He can see that moolah sitting there and knows how to get it, where the family facing homelessness is literally out in the cold.
The reason we have a Crisis Stabilization Unit now is because the public started haranguing Judge Woods to do something. Without that he’d have never gotten around to it.
I hope it was a good move on the Judge’s part to ask for help from HARK – an area nonprofit with good intentions but not necessarily connected to the same people who need help right now. I’ve heard from people who were turned down for help from HARK because they were too poor, which doesn’t sound auspicious under the circumstances. A nonprofit doesn’t have the same public accountability requirements that state agencies do. There needs to be some checkback mechanism in place here.
County government isn’t quite as accessible as the city is for some reason. The courthouse sits there in the center of town, but we mostly use it to vote, pay taxes and hold protests on their sidewalk. Beyond that it seems to be opaque. Until the past few years I had no idea what happened there. But the issue of Sheriff Helder being buddy with ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – and helping them ship immigrant neighbors off to deportation forced us to start visiting the court. It turned out to be an interesting exercise. The county court actually has significant impact, and this situation demonstrates just what that can mean for a county.
$4.5 + $7.1 = $11.6 million dollars meant to help struggling people. So far we’re not seeing much of that.
Friends, here is the moment when we can do something to help the people of our county. We need to link together to help our county figure out ways to step forward on this. They seem to need it from us.
Our county has new Quorum Court Justices after the last election. Some of us don’t know our Justice anymore, and it’s time we get to know each other. Would you give your Justice a call next week and ask them what they plan to do to help the struggling people of our county?
Please cordially ask your Justice what their understanding of the situation is. Why is the current money not getting out to help struggling people? How will HARK be accountable to the county for what they disburse of the $7.1 million? What guidelines have they been given for allocating it? What can we citizens do to help move the process forward?
Here is the very helpful link to the Quorum Court page on the county website. It has very nice photos of most of the Justices. There’s a useful-looking button to “email all” at the top of the list, but unfortunately it doesn’t work. To connect with your QC Justice you have to use the link at their individual photo. There are phone numbers listed too. It’s not hard and they’re usually friendly. They’re our elected officials. They don’t mind hearing from us, especially if we’re relatively polite.
You can also contact Judge Woods from his page. The phone number and email button is down at the bottom instead of next to his photo.. https://www.washingtoncountyar.gov/government/departments-a-e/county-judge
We the people need to be partners with our elected officials in coping with problems we collectively face. Here’s a very real situation that needs our focused attention. It’s an opportunity to step forward to be a force for good where it’s truly needed.
If you want to talk about it, the conversation is going on over at the People Power Facebook group right here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeoplePowerWashingtonCounty
Feel free to stop in for a visit.
If you want housing assistance you can be notified when the application for some of that money is ready. Probably next week. Here’s the Housing Authority link to sign up: https://fayettevillehousingauthority.org/
Great, timely, informing post today. We can all get busy around this rallying call to action!