Jordan McClements is a writer from Dover, who teaches English composition at his alma mater, Delaware State University.
Delaware is in crisis, and our leaders don’t have a plan to heal this overdose crisis. Our leaders don’t have a plan to heal the unsheltered crisis.
How do I know?
I’ve overdosed. I’ve lost people to overdose. Things are getting worse in Dover. Things are getting worse in Delaware. You know it.
We are living in Doom Town because we don’t hold ourselves accountable. We don’t hold our politicians accountable. We know we don’t hold them accountable.
We believe that, if the overdose stats go down, we can ignore that our state is in crisis. But we are in crisis ourselves, Delaware.
You feel it when that sharpness spikes when you see someone asking for a cigarette or change. We are all anxious about each other.
What if you were asking for cigarettes or change? Can you imagine that? Living so deep in the moment that a cigarette and a poisoned drug supply is all you can afford.
Detox and find affordable housing? Nope.
Who cares about zoning laws? We don’t.
But you do, reader.
If you change your zoning laws to put treatment and housing in, we will have a healthier community, Delaware. You’re not preserving your image by hurting your neighbors.
Read that again: You’re not preserving your image by hurting your neighbors.
We pretend that we’re completely self-reliant individuals, when we are a community.
People I love are out on the street. Just like people you love are out on the street. Just like the people we love who we’ve lost, and will lose, to overdoses.
Overdoses have happened and will continually happen in Delaware because overdoses run Delaware.
Our leaders only have one detox facility in the whole state. How is one detox going to solve a problem affecting every member of our community?
It doesn’t, and it hasn’t.
The state isn’t fooling us — those of us who have overdosed and/or lost someone to an overdose — that it has a plan.
The state doesn’t have a plan. If it had a plan, it would be acting.
If you don’t believe that the overdose crisis is getting worse in Delaware, look around.
“I’ll see you again,” I told my cousin at Christmas. But I didn’t.
I’m not going to let overdoses control my conversation or my community’s lives here in Delaware. This crisis has us so silent that we watch people all over our state freeze to death and overdose because we’re afraid to help our neighbors. We’re afraid to help our community. The homeless population and the addicted are part of our community.
We’re not going to stand for the players that claim to be healing our overdose crisis. We’re changing the overdose crisis by starting the conversation: “Hi, what’s your name?”
Craig Richards froze to death last year. Every time you’re comfortable, knowing you made it through the winter, remember that addicted and unsheltered person who you didn’t ask the name of. Will he or she make it through the heat this summer? Will he or she make it through the coming winter?
Our community includes the addicted and homeless individuals. Stop hurting our community, Delaware. Start the conversation. We won’t even use money to save people right now. We would rather pay the politicians and nonprofits that claim to help people first.
Full stop.
The state is going to get its pay before it saves lives. And, if you don’t believe me, look around you. The state gets paid if we overdose.
Full stop.
Consider that. If it wanted to solve or attempt to solve the overdose crisis, it wouldn’t rely on the people in power now and their payrolls. They’re sitting on the opioid settlement fund when they could be changing zoning laws and setting up treatment, detox and affordable housing right now.
We have the money now to change the overdose crisis, and they watch us die. They watch me die. They watch you die. They watch all of us die.
And spit in our faces about a 36% decrease, as if that’s a real change or significant.
These are our lives. Not your photo op.
The state thinks it’s playing chess with our lives, but we’re done with that. Stand up for what’s right, Delaware. Be a hero and help our community.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
