Jordan McClements is a writer from Dover, who teaches English composition at his alma mater, Delaware State University.
It doesn’t matter if Dover follows the Hope Center model. We need treatment, housing, detox, employment, food, shelter and water for the homeless population and addicted residents of the city. We need leadership that is at the forefront of research. Over 3,500 overdoses in Delaware since 2016 says this is another stalling and talking point. The overdose and unsheltered crises are not balls you can volley around, thinking your spin will solve the problems.
We need all the help we can get. We need leaders and citizens willing to try anything and everything. But we’ve got to be adaptable. If our leaders are going to institute change, institute something. Because, right now, we’re all hostages of talking points. There’s no action getting done. We’re all afraid to reinvent a new way of thinking. How we think produces our lives. Over 3,500 people overdosed in Delaware since 2016; we need to produce different thinking.
How?
Be honest. We have to care and show up. Right now, we’re all talking. Talking doesn’t lead to change. Action does. We want to help drug users and unsheltered people. We need to help these people now. If all we have is the Hope Center, then implement it and correct the failures we already know about — like not being equipped to serve specific needs to create meaningful change in Dover.
The state is afraid to spend money and doesn’t think drug users’ and unsheltered people’s lives are at stake. Be honest. The politicians know that they’re stalling. They know they don’t have a plan. I wrote the introduction to a plan that was given to them, and they followed with no plan and money in their pockets. The Hope Center is not a model. It is the closest example of something that is not doing enough for the people in Wilmington. If it was, we’d have instituted something just like it in Dover.
All the politics around how we treat our neighbors and their lives is disgusting. We’d rather feign indifference than admit that we want to help but don’t know what to do. We should hold our leaders accountable and tell them to use the plan they were given and to admit that the overdose crisis and the unsheltered crisis they claim to be trying their best to solve still exist. And, as I was told by the Meyer administration, people will always use drugs. So, they know that safer supply has to be instituted.
But all these Delaware politicians are cowards. They’re doing their best, just like we are doing our best. We’re doing nothing. It’s time we hold ourselves accountable. I dare you to call Delaware politicians and ask how you can be of service and how you can help the homeless and the unsheltered. We need you.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
