And this came up for me today after I had a meeting with the city regarding some changes we want to make to our property so we can add services to our program. The people I met with, one lady from the building and safety department, and a gentleman from planning and zoning, were very accommodating and seemed like they really wanted to help us provide the documentation we need for the State Department of Health. They were patient with me and helped me to understand exactly what I needed to provide them so we can move ahead with the project. I walked away from the meeting with a sense of optimism and felt like I had been well served by our city government.
But it wasn't always this way. Back in the 1990s, our program got into a legal battle with the city. We spent over five years in federal court and a lot of legal fees just to be allowed to operate our halfway houses in the downtown area. At that time it seemed like everyone wanted to run addicts and alcoholics out of town, as opposed to helping them. The attitude seemed to be that if the addicts went somewhere else the addiction problem would cease to exist. But to us, that was a shortsighted view. After all, statistics were and are that some 15% of Americans have some kind of a problem with substance abuse – either alcohol or drugs.
I'm not sure changes have happened within city government or within my own views. I know that since the 1990s the public and the politicians have become more aware of how many addicts are dying from methamphetamines, alcohol, and opioids. In 2017 alone around 800 addicts died from opioid overdoses. In addition, hundreds more died from alcohol and the abuse of other drugs such as methamphetamines.
I think the public and the political world have come to realize that it's important to support any group that's making an effort to help educate and save addicts and alcoholics from themselves. I believe this change in attitude is going to make it much easier for us to carry out our mission of helping addicts and alcoholics rebuild their lives.
