Daily Archives: June 7, 2022

The Wire Creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, on the Show 20 Years Later – The New York Times

Posted: June 7, 2022 at 1:35 am

David Simon concedes that it takes a special kind of [expletive] to say, I told you so.

But I cant help it, OK? he said recently. Nobody enjoys the guy who says, I told you so, but it was organic. Ed and I and then the other writers, as they came on board, we had all been watching some of the same things happen in Baltimore.

Two decades ago, Simon, a former cops reporter at The Baltimore Sun, joined Ed Burns, a retired Baltimore homicide detective and public-school teacher, to create HBOs The Wire. Fictitious but sourced from the Baltimore that Simon and Burns inhabited, The Wire, which premiered on June 2, 2002, introduced a legion of unforgettable characters like the gun-toting, code-abiding Omar Little (played by the late Michael K. Williams) and the gangster with higher aspirations, Stringer Bell (Idris Elba).

They were indelible pieces of a crime show with a higher purpose: to provide a damning indictment of the war on drugs and a broader dissection of institutional collapse, expanding in scope over five seasons to explore the decline of working-class opportunity and the public education system, among other American civic pillars.

This was not the stuff of hit TV: In real time, the show gained only a small, devoted audience and struggled to avoid cancellation. But over the years, The Wire became hailed as one of televisions greatest shows, even as the systemic decay it depicted became more pronounced in the eyes of its creators.

Burns and Simon went on to collaborate on other high-minded projects for HBO, most recently We Own This City, a mini-series created by Simon and their fellow Wire alumnus George Pelecanos, based on the true story of the Baltimore Police Departments corrupt Gun Trace Task Force. In separate interviews, Burns and Simon discussed the legacy of The Wire Burns by phone from his Vermont home and Simon in person in HBOs Manhattan offices and why it couldnt be made in the same way today. They also talked about the inspirations for the show and the devastating effect of Americas drug policies. These are edited excerpts from those conversations.

Could you have ever imagined The Wire would have had this kind of staying power two decades later?

ED BURNS The first thing that comes to my mind is that this show will live forever, because what it tries to portray will be around forever. Its just getting worse and worse. Thats all. And its expanding; its not just an urban thing anymore. Its everywhere.

DAVID SIMON Ed and I in Baltimore, George in Washington, Richard Price in New York wed been seeing a lot of the same dynamics. There were policies, and there were premises that we knew were not going to earn out. They were going to continue to fail. And we were fast becoming a culture that didnt even recognize its own problems, much less solve any of them. So it felt like, Lets make a show about this.

I didnt anticipate the complete collapse of truth, the idea of you can just boldly lie your way to the top. I did not anticipate the political collapse of the country in terms of [Donald] Trump. [The fictitious Baltimore mayor in The Wire, Tommy Carcetti] is a professional politician. Donald Trump is sui generis. Its hard to even get your head around just how debased the political culture is now because of Trump.

The show seemed to hint at the collapse of truth with the fabricated serial killer story line in the final season, and how the media ran with it.

SIMON We very much wanted to criticize the media culture that could allow the previous four seasons to go on and never actually attend to any of the systemic problems. We were going there, but I didnt anticipate social media making the mainstream miscalculations almost irrelevant. You dont even have to answer to an inattentive, but professional press. You just have to create the foment in an unregulated environment in which lies travel faster the more outrageous they are. If truth is no longer a metric, then you cant govern yourself properly.

BURNS If you look at the map, half of the Midwest and West are drought-ridden, and were treating it like how we used to treat a dead body on the corner or a handcuffed guy. Its like a news thing or bad automobile accident: Oh my, look, that tornado ripped apart this whole town. And thats it.

Theres no energy. Ive always thought about trying to do a story where the government has developed an algorithm to identify sparks, the Malcolm Xs and the Martin Luther Kings, these types of people, when theyre young, and then they just either compromise them away with the carrot or they beat them away with a stick. Because you need sparks. You need those individuals who will stand up and then rally people around them, and we dont have that those sparks, that anger that sustains itself.

Is it a conflicting legacy that The Wire has gained a greater audience over the years, yet the institutional decay that it illuminates has seemingly worsened?

BURNS Recently, the Biden administration and the New York mayors administration said they want to increase the number of police on the street. It amuses me that what theyre doing is a definition of insanity: You try something, it doesnt work. You try it again, it doesnt work. Its about time you try something different. Theyre still doing the same thing.

Granted, defund the police is not the right way of presenting the argument. But rechanneling money away from the police to people who could better handle some of the aspects of it would be good. And then doing something even more dramatic, like creating an economic engine, other than drugs, to help people get up and start making something of their lives.

How should We Own This City be viewed in relation to The Wire?

SIMON Its a separate narrative. Were very serious about having attended to real police careers and real activities and a real scandal that occurred. So no, its not connected to The Wire universe in that sense. It is a coda for the drug war that we were trying to critique in The Wire. If The Wire had one political message I dont mean theme; if it just had a blunt political argument about policy it was, End the drug war. And if We Own This City has one fundamental message, its END. THE. DRUG. WAR. In capital letters and with a period between every word. Its just an emphatic coda about where we were always headed if we didnt change the mission of policing in America.

Is a goal of We Own This City to provide a sharper critique on policing than The Wire provided?

SIMON No. I dont think theres that much difference between the two, other than the depths of the corruption of the bad cops. Police work is as necessary and plausible an endeavor as its ever been.

In many cases, and in many places like Baltimore, the national clearance rate has been collapsing for the last 30, 40 years. Thats not an accident. Thats because theyve trained generations of cops to fight the drug war. It doesnt take any skill to go up on the corner, throw everybody against the wall, go in their pockets, find the ground stashes, decide everybody goes, fill the wagons. Thats not a skill set that can solve a murder.

Thats not me saying, Oh, policing used to be great. No, I understand there were always problems with policing. But were one of the most violent cities in America. And all the discourse about abolish the police or defund the police Id be happy to defund the drug war. Id be happy to change the mission, but I dont want to defund the police. Good police work is necessary and elemental, or my city becomes untenable. Ive seen case work done right, and Ive seen case work done wrong, and it matters.

BURNS Im sorry [Baltimore] was labeled the city of The Wire, because we couldve taken that show into any city, in exactly the same way. Akron, Ohio, would have suddenly become the Wire city. So its a shame that it was pushed onto this little town.

Would The Wire be greenlighted if you pitched it today?

BURNS No, definitely not. HBO was going up the ladder at the time. They didnt understand The Wire until the fourth season. In fact, they were thinking about canceling it after three. We caught that moment where networks were thinking, Oh, we need a show for this group of people.

But now, its got to be Game of Thrones. Its got to be big. Its got to be disconnected from stepping on anybodys toes. Ive watched a couple of the limited series on HBO, and theyre good shows, but theyre not cutting new paths. They are whodunits or these rich women bickering among themselves in a town. I dont see anybody saying, Hey, thats a really great show.

SIMON No, because we didnt attend, in any real way, to the idea of diversity in the writers room. I tried to get Dave Mills, who had been my friend since college, to work on The Wire. But that would have been organic. It was just a friend; it wasnt even about Black and white. But other than David, who did a couple scripts for us, and Kia Corthron, the playwright, did one, we were really inattentive to diversity. That wasnt forward thinking.

Why were we inattentive? Because it was so organic to what Id covered and what Ed had policed. And then, I started bringing on novelists. The first guy was George Pelecanos, whose books about D.C. were the same stuff I was covering. And I happened to read his books, and I was like, This guy probably could write what were trying to do. And then he said: Look, youre trying to make novels. Every seasons a novel. We should hire novelists. And so we went and got Price. If I had it to do over again, I would have to look at [the diversity of the creative team] in the same way that I looked at later productions.

In retrospect, is there anything else that you wish that the show had done differently?

BURNS I wish that Season 5 took a different direction, as far as the newsroom was concerned, and didnt debase the idea of investigation. But its fine. What we tried to get across is that the kids that we saw in [Season 4] were becoming, as they approached adulthood, the guys that we saw in [Seasons] 1, 2, 3 and 4. It was continuous. This is just the next generation.

Other than the fact that the issues it highlighted are still prevalent, why do you think The Wire has such staying power?

SIMON Nothings in a vacuum. I would credit Oz for showing me that there was this network out there that would tell a dark story and tell an adult story. Homicide [Simons first book] had been made into a TV show. But with The Corner [Burns and Simons nonfiction book centered on a West Baltimore drug market], I was like: The rights are worth nothing. Nobodys going to put that on American television. And then I saw Oz, and so that was the moment where I looked at HBO and said, Oh, would you like to make a mini-series about a drug-saturated neighborhood and about the drug war?

And then the other places we stole from: We stole from the Greek tragedies, the idea that the institutions were the gods and they were bigger than the people. So, thanks to the college course that made me read Greek plays. Thanks to Paths of Glory, which was a movie about institutional imperative, the [Stanley] Kubrick film I took stuff liberally from there. Thanks to a bunch of novelists, Pelecanos, Price, [Dennis] Lehane, who decided they were willing to write television. Obviously, the cast and crew and everyone.

But it was a show that was ready for where TV was going to end up, and thats where a lot of luck is involved. The idea that you flick on your TV screen and decide you want to watch something that was made 10 years earlier or has just been posted; or youll wait until there are enough episodes to binge watch it; or you have insomnia, so youll watch four hours of a mini-series and just acquire it whenever the hell you want boy, I didnt see that coming.

BURNS Its like a western: Its mired in legend. But the legend is actually reality. Today, 20 years ago, 20 years from now its the same thing. And each generation coming up, each bunch of kids coming up, discover it and inject more life into it.

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The Wire Creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, on the Show 20 Years Later - The New York Times

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De Lima asks DoJ to dig deeper in their review of her drug cases – BusinessWorld Online

Posted: at 1:35 am

DETAINED Senator Leila M. de Lima on Monday asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) to dig deeper in their review of her drug cases, after four witnesses retracted their allegations relating to her supposed crime.

In assessing or re-assessing the rest of the evidence against me, the SoJ (Secretary of Justice) or DoJ must go beyond a superficial review of the cold statements or affidavits of the witnesses and inquire into the very circumstances by which these were extracted, the senator, one of the staunchest critics of outgoing President Rodrigo R. Duterte, said in a statement.

Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra, a Duterte appointee, at the weekend said the review would only take a few days.

The prosecution needs to reassess the strength of its overall evidence in the light of the retractions of certain witnesses, he said. If the prosecution believes that such recantations do not affect its case, then the prosecution will maintain its course.

Ms. De Lima said DoJ should ensure no injustice is done to anyone.

The drug charges against Ms. De Lima started after she led a Senate investigation of Mr. Dutertes war on drugs that has killed thousands.

In her previous post as head of the Commission on Human Rights, she also probed the assassination of suspected drug pushers by the so-called Davao Death Squad, allegedly upon the orders of Mr. Duterte when he was still the city mayor.

In her five years in detention, Ms. De Lima has repeatedly asserted her innocence, saying she was being prosecuted for criticizing Mr. Dutertes drug war. Alyssa Nicole O. Tan

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As West Virginia churns from one drug crisis to next, 3 with boots on ground call for better enforcement, treatment & education – WV News

Posted: at 1:35 am

West Virginias history of lagging most of the nation in many categories is well documented. And so, too, is the premise that the Mountain State often is at, or near, the cutting edge in a dubious category: The very latest trends in substance use.

These days, as The New York Times German Lopez reported recently, synthetic drugs the type made in a laboratory, like fentanyl or methamphetamine are leading the way and helping produce more overdose deaths than ever before in the country (over 100,000 in 2021).

You know, were behind the nation in most things except for drug addicts, said the commander of the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes Task Force, whos been enforcing drug laws in some capacity for 31 years.

The synthetic portion of that article, weve suffered with that for a couple of years now. The meth is off the charts. During the pandemic, when they had the border basically, all borders shut down, we saw a doubling of the price of everything, which actually slowed things down a little bit. Made things a little a little bit more expensive, he said.

But now theres no lack of anything that you want to get. If youre in little old Harrison County, West Virginia, but you want to get 10 pounds of meth, you can get 10 pounds of meth. If you want to get enough fentanyl to kill the East Coast, you can get enough fentanyl to kill the East Coast. You can get what you want, the commander said.

Bridgeport Interim Police Chief Mark Rogers also spent several years assigned to the Greater Harrison task force.

I prepared the last years report to [Bridgeport City] Council for 2021 and went through the numbers, and just generally speaking between the task force, [Mountaineer Highway Interdiction Team South], our officers alone, we recovered enough fentanyl just in theory to kill half of West Virginia, using the 1,000-microgram dose, Rogers said.

So I look at that and I think from my time at the task force, [fentanyl] was very rare. You might buy a patch that was divvied out in micrograms in the medical sense. Its astronomical, the problem we have with it now, because not only are they doing it with cut product as the commander talked about but you have drug dealers who peddle this as heroin and its actually not. Its fentanyl, Rogers said.

And then you have now the introduction of pill presses. And there are drug users who thought that they could use a certain type of drug, you know, be it a pill form that goes through the vetting process that the government has for medications, Rogers said.

They think theyre getting that, and now theyre finding out its fentanyl, which instituted the One Pill Can Kill idea that the DEA has promoted for quite a while now. I dont think this problem is going away. Synthetics are the hardest ones, I think, to chase because they will ever evolve the chemistry to try to, they believe, outwit the government [with] their analogs. They think that they can jump into something else, Rogers said.

Recently, I think there was a thing that came out that there is now an opioid that is three times stronger than fentanyl. And its just the promotion by drug traffickers to get a stronger product so they can make a larger cut to make volume that ultimately ends up on our streets. I dont know that this is going away, Rogers said.

Harrison Sheriff Robert Matheny is the recently elected chairman of the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes Task Forces Board of Control. He also has been a law enforcement officer for decades, from serving as a patrol officer, detective and administrator at the Clarksburg Police Department, to a later stint as police chief in Wheeling.

Matheny, Harrison sheriff since 2017, clearly is vexed by some of the roadblocks for both drug enforcement and substance use treatment.

Its certainly no reflection on our federal partners. Weve got great federal partners, but we dont have many of them, Matheny said. I always say if the federal government wanted to make a dent in this problem, they could. Its never going to go away, but there could be a dent made in it.

You look at here on a local level, we provide the resources. Bridgeport attaches a couple guys, we do, Clarksburg [does] to the [Greater Harrison] drug task force, which is important and its great. But as [the commander] said, you have two postal inspectors in the area. You probably got a handful of DEA, FBI, go through the alphabet soup, whatever. I just think there could be more buy-in from the federal government to help us out here locally, Matheny said.

Look what they did with COVID, how much money they threw at it, and what changes have been made over the past couple of years. Could you imagine once we get past this pandemic if they would throw those funds towards treatment, investigation, enforcement, you know, all the things that are important, as the commander said, if we would throw that kind of seriousness at this, Matheny said.

And Im not saying that our guys arent serious, and we dont take it serious, but as a whole, if the entire federal, state and local governments would take a serious approach. At the end of the day, it comes down to funding. If they would throw the serious funds to get the boots on the ground to work with our guys, we could make a dent in it, Matheny said.

But, I dont see that happening. Weve known that since President Nixon started the whatd they call it? the War on Drugs back in the 70s. And were still fighting the same thing. It is frustrating. But I will say kudos to the guys that we have out here working, even the patrol officers and patrol deputies. They try their hardest, Matheny said.

The three veteran officers agree theres a definite need for working on reducing the demand for drugs, including the synthetics. But theyre also not backing down from balancing that with trying to curb supply.

The commander recalled one especially successful operation that shuttered a head shop in Clarksburg that was selling huge quantities of the synthetic drug known as bath salts (cathinones).

After it was shut down in 2012, it was impossible for a long time to get the synthetic bath salts in the area, the commander said.

There was a nice period of time when the sole supply at that time was taken out and there was a nice lull in incidences, the commander said. But, they found a way to get it through the mail from China. Not to the scale and not with the ease that it once had been when that store was just wide open. But they work hand-in-hand. Someone will always take the risk to get it to the people that want it. Youve got to focus on both to make it successful.

Interdiction with synthetics can range from stops at the border to postal inspectors intercepting mailed shipments. The commander notes the equation of many dealers: Theyll send 10 packages in the mail fully anticipating two will be intercepted. Or theyll send 10 mules drug carriers across the border, also anticipating only an 80% success rate.

He recalls when the same kind of math was used in shipping cocaine to southern Florida. At first, cartels sent cocaine on ships. When that method was targeted by law enforcement, the supply method switched to planes dropping shipments, and later, after efforts to thwart air supply, to submarines making deliveries, the commander said.

Supply will always find a way to get it, but if you can choke on them, you increase their costs, the commander said. And I think largely the cartels in Mexico, that [New York Times] articles dead on about: You know, I could send enough fentanyl over, something the size of a baseball that you can cut down and make X amount of dollars. But if I wanted to do that in marijuana, my God, itd be a tractor-trailer.

If I wanted to do it in cocaine, it would be a large shipment. Meth would be a large shipment. But fentanyl, its small. Its hard to detect. You [take] pure fentanyl and get it over here and then you bust it, you cut it to where its what were seeing on the street, thats a small thing to [accomplish]. And it doesnt help that the borders just basically wide open.

Detecting synthetics provides its own challenges. But Matheny said one tool thats proven effective is using patrol officers, including road deputies or those specially assigned, such as with Mountaineer Highway Interdiction Team South, to pinch them on another arrest and find that they have this product.

Then we get with our guys on the task force, the experts with it. Maybe we try to tie him back to a larger group or larger-scale, you know, involvement in it. And, you know, thats how we do it, and it works, Matheny said.

Rogers would like to see more money, training and personnel dedicated to education of young people to try to reduce the demand early on.

I think the DARE program was a great program, and for some reason I know that society has changed in the way that they deliver information and then take it in. But there has to be something that we can come up with as a nation to help fix this and get that information across that doesnt normalize drugs whatsoever, Rogers said.

And I think its been a mixed signal from our government. Locally, I think that you have lots of people who have lived in households where now youre talking multi-generational families that parts of those families are drug users, drug abusers, have addiction problems. And it normalizes it, unfortunately, for a large sector of society. And we need to make sure that theyre well aware that that isnt normal and there should be options for them to get the help that they need and help alleviate that one desire to, I guess, dabble in it, Rogers said.

The task force commander recalls that his son had more instruction in middle school on bicycle safety than on drug awareness, and that makes no sense to me. The commander also recollects that, when he was a youth, the DARE program scared the [expletive] out of me about drugs.

I dont know if its because drugs are so personal at a political level or at a family level, that people just dont want to talk about it in that sense of scaring their children; Im not sure. I know how my house is run. My kids are scared of drugs. I take my kids in the car and take them and see the [expletive] parts of town and Im like, this is where you end up. If you use drugs, this is the lifestyle you have to look forward to. That person was a star athlete ... in Clarksburg that kid was a stud in basketball. Now look at him just waiting for somebody to flip him a $20 piece of crack. I still preach scaring the hell out of my kids, at least about the dangers of it. I just dont know why were not doing it on a national level. I dont get it, the commander said.

He believes the government is right to spend money on handing out supplies of Narcan to users, because it saves lives, but we should also be spending some money on education awareness with youth.

In making that comment, he notes the one flaw about Narcan.

It does save a lot of lives. But, it also means a lot of repeat overdoses. And eventually ... they will be someplace where somebody doesnt have Narcan.

He also points out that the free Narcan has to be paid for by someone, and in the end, thats taxpayers.

Rogers said Bridgeport police have been carrying Narcan (naloxone) for about five years. At first, it was meant to revive those suffering from heroin overdoses, because that was the more prevalent drug in the region.

But last year now with the area besieged with fentanyl Bridgeport officers administered naloxone on three different occasions to save lives, Rogers said. He indicated that wouldnt even have been on his radar as a potential occurrence in Bridgeport 10 years ago.

And then he points out that trying to instill a healthy fear in young people is good. Its a chance to get them to say, Hmm, this could really wreck my life. It could potentially take it.

But he adds that a lot of people just dont get to see that part of society that law enforcement gets to see fairly routinely. And Rogers adds that addiction strikes everywhere, with users shooting up in so-called bad parts of towns, but in tony locations, too.

Its everywhere, and people just dont realize that until it smashes you in the face because a family member has an issue, Rogers said.

Matheny, Rogers and the commander also are clearly upset that while West Virginia is dealing with a drug crisis, the number of effective treatment facilities is still lacking.

We dont have the facilities to get the people the help that they need. And most of the people I dont want to say all but most of the people that are in that addictive lifestyle, they cant afford to go to Utah or Florida or California for rehab, the commander said. Its going to be a taxpayer thing. ... Its great for the people out in LA, they got money, and you know the Hollywood stars that get addicted and they get to go off to some of the best recovery places they can afford to hire life coaches. You take every junkie in Harrison County, give him a life coach, they probably have a chance, but they cant afford that, and the taxpayers cant afford it.

If somebody was to sit down and task me with, Hey, youre now in charge of fixing this problem and Ive been at it for a long time I would struggle with how in the world would we come up with the money. But I would take what money we did have and I would attack it at all levels, the commander said.

Matheny sees a danger zone between detox and treatment.

Ive always said, I think when you go to detox, you ought to go straight into treatment and then straight into life coach. In a perfect world, there would be somewhere you could drop them off, Matheny said. Because it seems like when they finally hit that low that they want to detox, they detox and theyve got full intentions of getting treatment. But then for various reasons, like the commander said you know, the money, insurance or whatever they cant get right into treatment. So theres this 30 days they cant do it.

The task force commander said the idea of waiting for a treatment bed needs to be all but eliminated if West Virginia wants to make a serious run at curbing the supply side of the substance use crisis.

Somebody detoxes ... and then, We got a bed for you in a month. That might as well be a lifetime to an addict, he said.

Interjected Sheriff Matheny: Because it probably isnt going to happen.

The commander and Rogers recounted watching addicts detox, and agree its horrible. Its physical, its mental, its everything in between, Rogers said.

And then users go to a detox and they have this false hope that theyre good, and absolutely theyre not. Theyre still years to go to try to work towards that being completely off of whatever it was they were addicted to, and in that short period of time in between the detox center and trying to find a bed Or most places, you dont get committed against your will, so its a voluntary thing where they can walk away, Rogers said.

And then as soon as they walk away, that first one could be the last one. Most of the overdoses I worked, thats what the majority of them were, I just needed to try one more time, and the next thing you know, that was their last time.

The commander has seen drug use in the region cycle from Dilaudid (pain pills), to heroin, to OxyContin (pain pills), then to heroin and now to the synthetics, including fentanyl and lab-made meth.

Theres always an ebb and flow, a rise and fall of different drugs. And again, in my opinion, it goes back to that attacking supply and demand evenly, the commander said. You know, you knock out the prescription pill issue if you knock out the demand maybe the heroin wouldnt have flowed back in, or vice versa, heroin to the pills.

Crack cocaine. I mean, we all went through that. That was an epidemic in Clarksburg. It was horrible in Clarksburg. Finally sentencings were stiffer, crack was kind of handled, and then meth pops up.

And you know, were talking two different ends. Were talking depressants, which some people seek, and stimulants. So it wouldnt shock me one bit that if we were able to get a handle on the meth problem, that we wouldnt see crack cocaine pop back up, the commander said.

The whole leave a sleeping dog lie, that doesnt work in this because that sleeping dog is the cartels and the organizations in South America and everywhere else. They see an opportunity. If we could curb the demand here, if we would attack demand.

Rogers has a word of warning for why not to get involved in drugs in the first place, or to move mountains to get out of that lifestyle.

I think Ive told you this before: All drugs are bad, and theres no quality control when it comes to whatever it is that somebodys peddling for money.

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As West Virginia churns from one drug crisis to next, 3 with boots on ground call for better enforcement, treatment & education - WV News

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Does Aging-In-Place Work? What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us. – Forbes

Posted: at 1:34 am

Does "aging in place" mean independence or loneliness?

Aging-in-Place most of us think of this as the decision, as we get older, to stay in our longtime family homes, even as increasing infirmity or cognitive decline makes this harder. We know there are support programs available, providing home health aides, assistance with yardwork or a wheelchair ramp, a senior freeze to keep property tax increases at bay, and so on. And our homes hold so many memories and are a source of affirmation of the success weve had in our lives.

But is aging-in-place really the right decision? Or, put another way, does it work? Is it the right path for us all to take as we age, or would we be better off if we moved somewhere more suitable a single-level house, or a condo in an elevator building, or a home near public transportation, or any of the communities designed for older adults? Would we miss our neighbors in our old communities, or quickly adapt and be glad wed gotten past our hesitancy?

In the book Aging in the Right Place from 2015, author Stephen Golant provides a number of reasons why that right place might be the longtime family home:

The advantages of a familiar neighborhood: the individual knows the shops and services and can navigate the area well even after physical or cognitive decline.

The advantages of a familiar home: spatial competence (finding your way when the power goes out, navigating steps out of familiarity)

Preserving familiar relationships friendships and service providers.

The attachment to possessions and pets is not disrupted (e.g., vs. moving to no-pets home); the home not only contains memories of the past but also reminders of past successes.

The home affirms ones self-worth; one fears (whether rightly or wrongly) that others will consider the person a retirement failure upon moving.

Maintaining privacy, vs. moving from a single-family home to an apartment, or to Assisted Living, shared housing, or living with family.

At the same time, there are many quite considerable costs incurred in Aging in Place, not just direct financial costs, for which we can argue about whether the government should shoulder these, but less tangible costs:

Financial costs: the cost burden of maintaining large older home with yard vs. smaller but newer space with maintenance covered by association/landlord

Physical costs: the steps/stairs and narrow doorways can make home a prison for the physically-impaired or place the individual at risk of falls.

Social costs: the idealized neighborhood relationships might not be real, and turnover in the neighborhood may mean that there is more likelihood of social connection with the intentional social opportunities of a senior community.

Health costs: isolation can mean lacking help for medical emergency even to the point of dying unnoticed. More mundanely, homebound seniors have less ability to cook healthy food, travel to doctors, etc.

Finally, there are particular challenges for those experiencing cognitive decline, especially when there is no family member to notice or when decline is hard-to-notice.

Golant doesnt beat around the bush, but writes that

Older adults are now bombarded with a singular and unrelenting message: They should cope with their age-related health problems and impairments in their familiar dwellings. . . . Older people cannot turn on a TV, search n the Internet, read books about old age, or pick up a newspaper without getting this persistent stay-at-home message (p. 63).

In a somewhat older article, in 2009, William H. Thomas and Janice M. Blanchard offered a sharp critique of the Aging in Place model, in Moving Beyond Place: Aging in Community. They acknowledge the fear of nursing homes but write

The bitter truth is that an older person can succeed at remaining in her or his own home and still live a life as empty and difficult as that experienced by nursing home residents. Feeling compelled to stay in ones home, no matter what, can result in dwindling choices and mounting levels of loneliness, helplessness, and boredom.

This is a stark message. But heres an even more discouraging problem: in my research on the issue, I encountered one repeated refrain. There is no solid scholarly research which asks the question: which choice is the better one, in terms of future quality of life, to stay or to move? Its not an easy question, to be sure: simply looking at the quality of life of the elderly and comparing those who live in single-family homes vs. various kinds of elder-friendly housing would not adequately distinguish between those who moved due to some sort of health problem and those who moved with the aim of preventing future health problems, for example. But theres a data source that scholars have mined creatively to answer all manner of questions about retirement and aging, the Health and Retirement Study, and economists and similar researchers have been very creative in identifying quasi-experiments to answer this sort of question.

Discouragingly, though, given the relentless policy advocacy of supports for aging-in-place, it seems rather likely that this advocacy has discouraged researchers from considering that question in their research, depriving us all of what would otherwise be rather important information.

As always, youre invited to comment at JaneTheActuary.com!

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Father Bills & MainSpring Receives $11.2 Million in Financing from Rockland Trust for the Construction of the Housing Resource Center in Quincy -…

Posted: at 1:34 am

Quincy, MA- Rockland Trust announced that it provided $11.2 million in financing to Father Bills & MainSpring (FBMS) for the construction of a new state of the art facility in Quincy that will include a day center with wraparound supports, 75 emergency shelter beds, plus 30 units of 100% affordable housing.

Rockland Trust will also be purchasing the federal and state tax credits associated with the project through a Fund managed by Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation.

Rockland Trust is honored to work with FBMS and the City of Quincy on the Yawkey Housing Resource Center, said John Quintal, First Vice President, and Boston Lending Center Manager at Rockland Trust. We strongly believe in the innovative approach undertaken by FBMS to address the issue of homelessness.

Rockland Trust is a critical partner in our work to make the Yawkey Housing Resource Center a reality, said John Yazwinski, President & CEO at Father Bills & MainSpring. We are grateful for their multi-faceted commitment to our work through financing, purchasing of tax credits, and a significant charitable contribution from their Foundation which will better support individuals experiencing homelessness across the South Shore.

The City of Quincy acquired the land for the new project on FBMS behalf and furnished the 99-year land lease. The multi-use facility will be located at 39 Broad Street, directly across from the existing Father Bills Place in Quincy. Once the project is complete, the existing location will be demolished to make way for a new police station, administrative offices for the fire department, and headquarters for emergency operations.

We are grateful to business leaders like Rockland Trust, who are intentional about investing back into their communities through projects such as the Yawkey Housing Resource Center, said Nina Liang, Quincy City Councilor. When we are facing problems that affect all of us, it takes purposeful collaborations to address such serious needs. Their support of this project is critical in helping the most vulnerable individuals in our city find stability and work toward self-sufficiency.

Phase one of the FBMS project entails the construction of the two-story 16,000 SF Housing Resource Center (HRC) building which, in addition to 75 shelter beds, will provide healthcare, meal services, young adult services, education services, veteran services, and substance abuse treatment in collaboration with local community partners. Phase two of the project will be the construction of the apartment property featuring 30 affordable housing units for individuals transitioning out of HRC.

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To live a normal life: Fruitvale woman returns from Inclusion conference Rossland News – Rossland News

Posted: at 1:34 am

A small Fruitvale contingent attended the Inclusion BC 2022 Conference in Surrey and returned home hoping to light a fire under local government.

Ben Postmus and his daughter Kayleigh Postmus attended the conference along with more than 600 people from May 26-28, with the central theme: Everybody Belongs.

Kayleigh, a 33-year-old woman living with disabilities, is incredibly resilient, unbelievably positive, and a staunch advocate for inclusion and acceptance.

It was a lot of fun, Kayleigh told the Trail Times. Dancing was fun and the dinner was amazing. The organizers put on a great conference, it was amazing and the beds were comfy.

Kayleigh Postmus

The three-day conference highlighted a number of keynote speakers and breakout sessions that included seminars on self-advocacy, housing, supportive employment, education, health, digital literacy, friendship and engaging people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, sexual health, and much more.

Kayleigh also led a seminar with her peers, where she shared one of her favourite moments about a special trip with her family.

It was called Speak, Share, Laugh about speaking and sharing moments about us, people with disabilities, and what we do for fun, said Kayleigh. So I talked about Alaska, my Alaskan cruise.

Kayleigh also sits on a community council in partnership with Community Living BC (CLBC), and family members and advocates from the East and West Kootenays. As the only attendees from Greater Trail, she says the conference provided invaluable information that she looks forward to sharing with the council and others.

I can bring back the housing that people want to live in houses, they want jobs, people want to have boyfriends and have relationships and friends and learn how to advocate for themselves too, said Kayleigh.

While many municipalities have actively engaged and implemented inclusion supports and services, some local governments have been slow to respond.

Comparing to what many communities are doing, we have a lot of work to do here with regards to supportive employment, with regards to inclusive housing, intentional communities, and with regards to how folks with disabilities are perceived in the community, said Ben.

He points to communities like Nelson and Port Alberni that have raised the bar on inclusive housing, and taken the initiative on providing property, funds, supports and guidance on inclusive community housing.

They are doing as much as they can for free to get the fire going on inclusive housing and intentional communities, Ben said. It is an amazing model, and there are so many other amazing models in other communities as well just not Trail.

They have had many opportunities to look at them and they are not.

Video: Laurens Story

As a coordinator for Family Supports Institute of BC, Postmus is a persistent advocate seeking supports from municipal governments and community groups, yet, realizes the will and resources are not always equal.

The scale is not balanced, there are so many service-rich communities, and so many communities that are not, and ultimately it is on the families to have to go to bat consistently to get the services they need for their family members, said Ben.

He says the Village of Fruitvale is making progress on Phase 1 of the affordable and inclusive housing project on Columbia Gardens Avenue, which will provide housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

More good news came on Monday, May 30, when the province announced that there will be new funding of nearly $5.3M devoted to community inclusion.

The funding will support Reimagining Community Inclusion projects in the priority areas of inclusive housing, employment, health and wellness, inclusive Indigenous services and a community-inclusion innovation fund, which focuses on inclusion projects.

This funding will kick start many good projects that will improve the quality of life for people with developmental disabilities, said Nicholas Simons, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. Our partners at the table are fully committed to advancing this complex work, which will ensure our province is a welcoming and inclusive place for everyone.

The Postmus family has been advocating for inclusive supports for decades. If you live in Fruitvale you probably know Kayleigh, and cant help but stop and say Hi! whether its at a Nitehawks game, a local store, or a variety of Special Olympics BC -Trail events.

The conference proved an especially reinvigorating experience that offered some hope and guidance for the family.

For Kayleigh it was tremendous exposure on what she needs to do to advocate for herself for the rest of her life, said Ben.

Along with many others in Greater Trail, Kayleigh is not asking for much, only a chance to live and grow independently.

I do want my own place, she said. Learn how to make my own bed, do my own laundry, and make my own food to live a normal life.

Vancouver will host the World Inclusion Conference in 2023 and expects upwards of 1,000 delegates from across the globe, including Ben and Kayleigh.

Read: Province to fund Fruitvale affordable housing project

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Northwood Technical College Joins Achieving The Dream Network – DrydenWire

Posted: at 1:34 am

SILVER SPRING, MD -- Northwood Technical College is joining the 2022 cohort of Achieving the Dream (ATD) Network to holistically advance equity, access, and student success. By joining the ATD Network, Northwood Tech is committing to a tailored engagement in whole-college transformation and gaining access to a nationwide network of peer support and expertise.

Northwood Tech is part of a cohort of seven colleges joining the ATD Network during a time of continued enrollment challenges for two-year institutions across the country, when equitable access and community engagement are more important than ever for the students that colleges serve.

In response to the cohort announcement, John Will, President of Northwood Tech acknowledged, Northwood Technical College is pleased to be a part of the ATD network. There has never been a more important time to ensure were doing everything we can to ensure we are removing barriers to postsecondary success, and Achieving the Dream will help us ensure were prioritizing the right initiatives to support our efforts.

Community colleges, and particularly colleges in the ATD Network, recognize that they serve as engines of opportunity not just for their students, but for the entire communities that they serve, said Dr. Karen A. Stout, President and CEO of Achieving the Dream. ATDs work is centered on equity, and I am excited to see how the new Network colleges in the 2022 cohort start generating transformational change that lifts up their communities and advances the field.

Teams from each of the seven colleges will convene in Charlotte, NC, from June 14 to 16 for a Kickoff Institute that will set the stage for their partnership with ATD. Representatives from Northwood Tech will meet virtually with ATD coaches and begin to develop customized action plans based on Northwood Techs strategic goals.

Northwood Tech, alongside the 2022 cohort of new ATD Network colleges, is committed to tackling equity challenges, building a culture of data-informed decision-making, and maximizing the student experience through high-quality teaching and learning.

Northwood Tech is joining the ATD Network alongside six other institutions:

Achieving the Dream (ATD) is a partner and champion of more than 300 community colleges across the country. Drawing on our expert coaches, groundbreaking programs, and national peer network, we provide institutions with integrated, tailored support for every aspect of their work from foundational capacities such as leadership, data, and equity to intentional strategies for supporting students holistically, building K-12 partnerships, and more. We call this Whole College Transformation. Our vision is for every college to be a catalyst for equitable, antiracist, and economically vibrant communities. We know that with the right partner and the right approach, colleges can drive access, completion rates, and employment outcomes so that all students can access life-changing learning that propels them into community-changing careers.

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ASU IT event aims to empower communities: Those we serve and those we belong to – ASU News Now

Posted: at 1:34 am

Starting local, thinking global

Throughout the full week of Empower, ASU IT community members volunteered with organizations that have missions to better the lives of Arizonans. Areas of support were food donations, technology access for seniors and more.

One such project included hosting workshops with senior residents. There, ASU IT professionals partnered with local seniors to create online grocery shopping accounts. Together, they set up an account and got to shopping using the $10 gift certificate provided to each resident. Seniors also got to ask tech questions about their devices.

It was powerful to see our teams use their skills in the local community, like working with senior residents to better navigate their devices for real-world tasks," said Breanna Smith, event coordinator for Empower. "In doing so, our impact reaches beyond UTO, beyond ASU and into the communities we live and serve."

In addition to local volunteer opportunities, ASUs IT community is advancing a series of initiatives that serve the broader Arizona community.

During Empower, ASU Chief Information Officer Lev Gonick took the stage to share examples of this work in action, starting with the Digital Equity Initiative. In partnership with Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions'Maryvale One Square Mile Initiative, ASUs IT community is helping to bring high-speed, reliable internet access to local families in Phoenix through the use of millimeter wave technology.

Gonick also shared projects like the universitysuse of chatbotsto enhance students interactions when, for instance, seeking financial aid information. He announced theT4 Leadership Academy, which cultivates IT leaders who are globally engaged and locally attuned to the role of technology for social benefit and invested in designing the intergenerational workforce of the future.

Then a panel of six ASU, industry and local leaders took the stage to expand upon the theme of community, diving into their shared and unique experiences across the workforce.

Neal Lester, founding director of Project Humanities at ASU, challenged participants to disrupt the notion of the community and realize that there are many communities around the world in which we can feel included and part of. He explained that he came to that realization when he saw places where he was included, but felt excluded or invisible.

So, community is when I felt and knew that I was connected and being heard and being seen, said Lester.

With a greater and more diverse definition of community shared by the panelists, teams were primed to tackle eight IT areas to transform society. Spanning digital trust, communications, data architecture and learning technologies, the topics focused on:

Panelist and ASU Chief Research Information Officer Sean Dudley contextualized the development of helpful technology within these spheres at the university.

For those of us who are proficient in technology, we can lose sight of some of the basics, which can truly be transformative for people, Dudley said, adding that innovation must be human-centered and not just for the sake of technical improvements.

For example, as Debbie Esparza, chief executive officer of YMCA Metropolitan Phoenix, put it in regards to YWCAs Meals on Wheels program, there was an assumption seniors couldnt access technology. But that assumption was wrong, and new technology interfaces have been implemented as a result.

When it comes to creating a sense of community for ASUs IT professionals, its about creating an environment where all feel empowered.

We are intentional about the way that we designed the (ASU IT) community, the way we actionalize and operationalize the community, and find ways to sustain the community, Gonick said.

The Empower event turns this notion into action for the ASU IT community.

Teams spent the second half of the day connecting with colleagues and developing new ideas around the eight focus areas duringWorld Cafe-style discussions. The World Cafe Method pulls from integrated design principles that make discussion simple and effective for large group conversations.

It was an excellent opportunity to engage with so many amazing colleagues across our community, said Eddie Garcia, director of law information technology for the Sandra Day OConnor College of Law at ASU. I truly enjoyed this humanizing and thought-provoking event.

For the past five years, the University Technology Office has hosted the annual event to give Sun Devils time to foster a stronger sense of community amongst the universitys IT network. This fifth Empower emphasized that connection, as more than 500 Sun Devils joined together last week at the Student Pavilion on Tempe campus.

When asked what community means to them, ASUs IT professionals used words like belonging, equality, respect, happiness, connection and kindness. By exploring IT themes through the lens of human impact, teams were able to build connections and more closely collaborate to better serve the ASU community and beyond.

Special thanks to the leadership panels:

And to community partners:

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Could more entrepreneurs help revive the heartland? – The Journal at the Kansas Leadership Center

Posted: at 1:33 am

For heartland communities hoping to thrive, encouraging and supporting entrepreneurs can energize the local economy. Places such as Ord, Nebraska, have emerged as regional poster children for economic development. Peers such as Council Grove in Kansas are seeing green shoots of their own. But such shifts can be difficult to make, and there isnt a tried and true formula that works everywhere. To figure out what works, communities have to develop their own combination of tactics and be willing to push until they find their version of success.

With 15 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places, visitors to Council Grove, such as Barbara Worley of Olathe and daughters Mila and Eloisa, might be forgiven if they expect to see a town tightly tethered to its past. In fact, entrepreneurship isnt just encouraged in the Morris County seat, its being cultivated. (Photo by Jeff Tuttle)

All Bob and Christy Alexander had in mind was renting studio spacein downtown Council Grove to expand a side hustle that was burgeoning into a small art business.

Then, with Bob branching out from stained glass into metalworks, the couple started to think about buying one of the many vacant, dilapidated buildings along Main Street. So they borrowed some money and set sail with no business plan and absolutely no idea about how to run a business.

Fourteen years later, Alexander ArtWorks is still going strong. Some townspeople hail the Alexanders as pioneers who paved the way for a Main Street rebound, but Christy rejects the label.

Pioneer indicates something that is intentional, she says. We were never trying to start a renaissance or anything like that.

Whatever the origins, the Alexanders sparked a momentum that helped this Flint Hills community of approximately 2,100 residents write its own playbook for rural revitalization. At a time when the story being told about our nations smaller communities is typically one of decline, disinvestment and a lack of innovation, Council Grove shows how entrepreneurs can energize an economy for the better by making it easier for residents, particularly younger generations, to start up their own business, and supporting them once they do.

But if you want more entrepreneurs in your community, how exactly do you get them? Because there doesnt seem to be an exact formula that works for every community, and the answer can seem a bit mysterious at first.

Barriers vary widely from community to community, as the Kansas Leadership Center, publisher of The Journal, learned during a recent Heartland Together listening tour about rural entrepreneurship through Kansas, Missouri Nebraska and Iowa. (The tour was part of a $150,000 grant to KLC from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. This story was produced independently of the tour.)

In some places, tour facilitators learned, it can be hard for business owners to secure a downtown storefront because of decaying buildings and absentee landlords. In others, the challenge is getting workers who can secure a job with salary and benefits at the local manufacturing plant to see starting their own business as an attractive alternative. Natural disasters, changing demographics, conflict between established residents and community disruptors, and wariness about communities aiming too high can all complicate the equation.

However, by looking at communities such as Council Grove, and Ord, Nebraska a similarly sized community that is being touted by its advocates as a regional example of rural resurgence patterns emerge that show a communitys path to forging a more shared mindset about growth and entrepreneurship.

One is the importance of building upon a foundation of young talent and finding ways to support their ventures, through both financial programs and community loyalty. Caleb Pollard and his partners in Ords Scratchtown Brewing Co., one of a number of entrepreneurial ventures that have been popping up in the central Nebraska community of about 2,000 people, like to call it positive transformation through fermentation.

Other trends include a willingness to preserve whats most essential about a communitys past by trying new things to help secure its future, whether that be by embracing immigrants or by nurturing entrepreneurism in schools.

But such shifts arent necessarily easy to make quickly. Downtown Alma, which is about 40 miles northeast of Council Grove in neighboring Wabaunsee County, is also showing signs of life. But community attitudes have tended to be more cautious about change than in Morris County.

Part of the reason is that Wabaunsee County is a county of small towns with strong individual identities and different regional loyalties scattered across multiple political jurisdictions. Collaboration on economic development there requires working across different perspectives in a way it doesnt in a community where 40% of the countys population is anchored in one place.

Because each town and region is distinctive, its important to be cautious about drawing overarching lessons, economic development experts say. One that rings clear, from Ord in particular, is that it takes a combination of tactics to achieve success. A focus on small businesses, for instance, doesnt need to preclude targeted recruitment of large employers, and financing assistance for startups can be incredibly helpful.

Another takeaway is that the revitalization of a community feeds upon itself: A rebounding community is attractive to younger generations, who then become the risk-takers that fuel continued growth. Instilling school-age kids with entrepreneurial spirit is an important part of recruiting and retaining young leaders.

In the end, success breeds success. Nothing shuts up naysayers better than proving them wrong, entrepreneurs told The Journal. Which means that entrepreneurs and the communities theyre working in need to be able to hold steady through failures and learn from setbacks to ultimately secure wins and develop a winning formula that works for them.

No town is too small to make a comeback, says Christy Preston. She covers the western part of the state for NetWork Kansas, a nonprofit established by the state to provide fiscal and technical assistance to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

When we work at it together, then everything is unstoppable, Preston says. You can do a lot of great things.

Rural decline is far from universal, with some researchers noting many thriving rural counties benefit from proximity to population centers, an influx of immigrants and popularity with retirees. But the overall trend favors cities and suburbs.

The latest census figures show that 86% of the U.S. population lives in a metro area. In examining 2020 census data, the Kansas Health Institute determined that approximately 60% of Kansans live in urban counties. Similar dynamics are at play in Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa.

The hollowing out of some rural towns means more than just the loss of a Rockwellian way of life, says Don Macke, a Nebraska-based community economic development expert. Downtrodden communities filled with poor and unhealthy people rely heavily on government assistance financed by all taxpayers, he notes.

Its not like they go away and die, Macke says. They just become really expensive.

Macke leads e2 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, which is part of NetWork Kansas.

It is his organization that identified Ord as a model for a rural rebound by nurturing entrepreneurism. It has a web page devoted to its extensive studies of Ord. But the communitys success is as rooted in theexercise of community leadership as it is in technical solutions that encourage entrepreneurs.

Over the past two-plus decades, leaders in Ord have persuaded voters to invest in themselves through a 1% sales tax for economic development, money that can provide gap financing for local small businesses in need of additional capital to get started. The first loan went to Valley Thunder Rods and Restoration, an auto body shop that specializes in antiques and classics, which remains in business under the ownership of Trent Proskocil and his brother. (NetWork Kansas provides similar financing through its E-Community program, which includes more than 60 communities around the state.)

To date, more than $6.2 million has been loaned to 68 local businesses throughout Valley County, leveraging over $19 million in development.

Community officials attracted some businesses, such as an ethanol plant that spawned a cluster of related industries, including Valley Transportation, a trucking company established to haul grain and byproducts. They also fought to keep important economic linchpins Ord already had. A successful push in the mid-1990s to save the community hospital, which operates now as the Valley County Health System, created an anchor for a health care cluster that is a leading creator of jobs in Ords region.

At the same time, there have also been investments in quality of life amenities. A nonprofit, the Valley Performing Arts Theater, was established and acquired the communitys iconic theater on the square to put on performing arts events. Such offerings, e2 indicates, are essential to the core formula for rural community development success in todays competitive location environment.

Whatever the formula, the community is producing results that could be hard to refute.

Although Valley County experienced a 4.7% drop in population from the 2010 to 2020 census, it saw a small uptick in population during the pandemic-era population shifts of 2021. Several other indicators are pointing in the right direction. They include personal income, job growth and retail sales.

Between 1970 and 2016, personal income in Valley County grew from $120.9 million to $183.8 million in real dollars, a 52% increase, according to e2 research. That outpaces the 40% rate of growth Americans as a whole gained in median personal income according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve over roughly the same period.

The county also saw a slight gain in employment between 2000 and 2018, outstripping peer counties in Nebraska, Kansas and South Dakota.

But the No. 1 metric, in Mackes view, is population growth among people in their 30s and 40s young families and the next generation of leaders. Between 2000 and 2010, according to e2, Valley County experienced a nearly 54% increase in residents between the ages of 30 to 34. The increase was nearly 10% in the 40-44 age bracket.

In the 2020 Census, the countys working age populations percentage dropped slightly, from 54.2% to 51.3% of the total population, although detailed figures on the exact demographic breakdown were not yet available.

Mackes point speaks to another argument Mackes point speaks to another argumentfor rebuilding small towns.

It preserves a way of life that many Americans enjoy, offering a slower pace, less stress and closer community relationships than in a city.

That desire to live in such an environment was often cited by the dozen small-business owners The Journal spoke to for this story, including group conversations with entrepreneurs in Council Grove and Alma.

The businesspeople in the two Kansas communities do everything from running craft breweries and coffee shops, to restoring old buildings for event spaces and stores, to doing custom screen printing and embroidery, and operating a specialty beef company.

Economic development officials supporting these business owners include Tracy Henry, executive director of the Greater Morris County Development Corp., and Jim MacGregor, director of economic development for Wabaunsee County. MacGregor succeeded Henry after she left Wabaunsee County for the Morris County position in late 2019.

In Council Grove, Jesse and Deidre Knight are among the owners of Riverbank Brewing, along with Lindsay Gant and others. Beth Watts owns Watts Coffee Co., which she operates out of space she rents in the Alexander ArtWorks building.

Riverbank Brewing opened in November 2021, and Watts opened her coffee shop in January 2019.

Jesse grew up in the nearby town of Alta Vista, and Deidre grew up in Salina. They both have farming backgrounds.

They lived in Kansas City for a while after graduating from Kansas State University, but they found themselves in Council Grove often. The thought of moving to Council Grove had an irresistible appeal.

It was a way of life that we appreciate, Jesse Knight says. Its not that Kansas City wasnt fun. I think we knew that wasnt where we wanted to be long term.

Gant is originally from Dodge City and moved to Council Grove when she and her husband got married. Watts moved to the area in 2004 when her husbands job brought them there.

We are really creating a life we all want to have here. We want cool stores, cool coffee shops, (a) cool brewery, cool buildings, cool event spaces, Gant says. We are all choosing to be here, so we are creating a life

To be proud of, Deidre Knight interjected.

Yeah, Gant agreed.

Almas downtown entrepreneurs include 32-year-old Morgan Holloman, who owns the Antique Emporium of Alma and Mill Creek Mercantile, and Wrenn Pacheco, 40, who runs Pacheco Beef, which sells high-quality beef from the cattle she and her husband raise on their ranch. Dylan Barber, 51, is the owner of the Pep Club Locker, which provides school spirit wear and other products.

For Pacheco, the quality of Flint Hills grass is a key reason she and her husband are in Wabaunsee County. But there is more to it than that.

I believe in what this community has, she says. I believe that there is stuff and things for people to come and see and get to experience what we have here, and what we get to experience every day.

But even in places where entrepreneurs appear to be flourishing, its not always clear how much the path is being cleared for people of different backgrounds to pursue their dreams. Most of the business owners interviewed by The Journal reflect the demographic makeup of their communities, which are overwhelmingly white. And while its perhaps unwise to underestimate the risk of starting a business just about anywhere, its not uncommon for business owners in these communities to have a clearer path to accessing resources or other income streams to help them out.

Could that change over time?

When Henry talks to high school freshmen about BYOB, she is not encouraging underage drinking. Instead, she tells them that the acronym means be your own boss.

She delights in planting these seeds of entrepreneurism. To her, that is the ultimate form of economic development.

Henry grew up in Cambridge, Kansas, a town of fewer than 100 people about 60 miles southeast of Wichita. When she finished high school, her parents got her some luggage and sent her on her way. Dont live the rest of your life in Cambridge, they told her. Go out and find something better.

Thats the mindset Henry is trying to change when working with students in Morris County. The message is: A four-year college degree and relocation to a city is not the only road to success.

Perhaps, she says, that message will resonate with the student who spends evenings tinkering with a motorcycle, dirt bike or mower. Maybe that student opens a small-engine repair shop.

They are not going to employ 30 people, Henry says. Thats OK. They are providing a good job and a decent living for their family. They are going to stay there. They are going to raise their kids; they are going to go through the school system.

And who knows? Henry says, they may need to bring on a second person, and maybe a third.

Its not an overnight success, she says. To me, that is economic development. To me, economic development is growing your own.

Beth Watts opened Watts Coffee Co. in Council Grove in 2019 in space she rents in the Alexander ArtWorks building. And if online reviews are an accurate indicator, her shop is one of the perks of local living. (Photo by Jeff Tuttle)

Yet change doesnt always come easily, even in communities that appear to be headed in the right direction. In choosing whether to embrace entrepreneurship, communities have to wrestle with competing values, squaring a desire for growth and progress with a willingness to deal with conflict and loyalty to friends and family, history and past successes.

Silver Tongued Devil is a Belgian tripel, and its a big seller for Scratchtown Brewing when it comes out each fall. The success of the beer is one way Pollard and his partners get the last laugh on opponents who made life difficult as the business moved toward its opening in 2013.

The name of the beer comes from the nickname brewery opponents gave Pollard when they complained in an online forum.

Pollard, 42, is still unsure what generated the vitriol and false accusations including that his wife was running a brothel at the brewery. Crazy as it might sound, he thinks some of it came from cat lovers who were outraged by a feral cat ordinance under consideration when one of the Scratchtown Brewing partners was on the city council.

Some people thought it was funny in town. Some people thought it was horrific. Some people didnt care, Pollard says of the backlash. But for us it was a nightmare. It was a three- year nightmare.

Pollards experience is an extreme case, but it illustrates that naysayers and skeptics can be a huge hurdle in rebuilding a community through entrepreneurism, especially in a tight-knit small town where conflict can feel up close and personal.

In Council Grove, entrepreneurs have crossed swords with residents who prefer selling the towns history.

I think there is a kind of a group of people here who want us to walk around in period costumes from the 1800s and be gunslingers, because that is what they think draws people to town, Watts says.

MacGregor has encountered similar resistance in Wabaunsee County.

The geography and history of Wabaunsee County might explain the lack of vision, says MacGregor, a Virginia native who fell in love with the Flint Hills when he did tours at Forts Leavenworth and Riley during his career as an Army officer. He and his family settled outside Alma a few years ago after MacGregor retired from the service.

The majority of the countys population is rural, MacGregor notes, and the remaining 40% live in seven very small towns. Alma is the biggest with about 800 residents.

The county, MacGregor notes, is part of three state Senate districts and is split among seven school districts.

Alta Vista on the west identifies heavily with Morris County because its kids are part of the Council Grove school district, and MacGregor says Harveyville to the east sometimes feels more like it is part of Shawnee or Osage counties than part of Wabaunsee County.

And then, he says, there is a historical religious divide between the northern half of the county, settled by German Catholics, and the southern half, settled by German Lutherans.

Listening to MacGregors descriptions of Wabaunsee County, its easy to see how they could apply in other parts of the state.

Wabaunsee County, he says, has never been a county that has spent a lot of energy or money investing in the future potential of growth. There is very much a sense in some places that what we have works, that this is a great place and we dont want it to change.

Evidence of that attitude, MacGregor says, was apparent three decades ago when the county rejected a power plant that ultimately located in Pottawatomie County.

You can also see it today, he says, in some natives who have never traveled outside the county and in the Alma residents who disagreed with incentivizing the development of 16 residential lots in town. The incentives were ultimately approved by the city council with support from the local school board and the county commissioners.

The population trends in Wabaunsee County are actually more positive in recent years than the ones in Morris County. Almas home county lost fewer people than Council Groves home county from 2010 to 2020, and recent estimates suggest that Wabaunsee County climbed up toward its 2010 population mark in 2021 while Morris County saw a slight dip.

These are good people, MacGregor says, they just come at these issues from a different perspective on what works and what the future might look like based upon their past experiences.

Pacheco and other business owners in downtown Alma have more prosaic concerns, such as how to draw more foot traffic into their stores. Theyd also like to see owners of the empty downtown buildings take responsibility for making them look presentable.

If there are whispers in town that they are crazy to make a go of it in Alma, they pay them no mind.

We are grinding, Holloman says. We are making it work.

Morgan Holloman, owner of the Antique Emporium of Alma and Mill Creek Mercantile, knows that rural locales are often seen as too rocky for entrepreneurial endeavors to put down roots. But she finds motivation in negativity. We are grinding, she says. We are making it work. (Photo by Jeff Tuttle)

Even when progress is achieved, its not without challenges. Sustaining success is a problem that can creep up, especially if communities arent prepared for it.

Pollards experience in Ord tells him that community leaders in Council Grove, Alma and elsewhere need to be aware of burnout. Pollard moved to Ord with his wife and children 14 years ago to become head of the Valley County Economic Development Board. Eventually he tired of public service. But after a little time away, he is re-energized about becoming more civically involved.

Such ebbs and flows are natural, Pollard says, and need to be managed rather than avoided.

Waxing and waning is really natural, he says. Volunteers will come and go, leaders will come and go, and thats OK. Re-engaging is OK. That is the one thing. It is a lifelong commitment, and your role can evolve in the community over time.

Proskocil, the co-owner of the body shop in Ord, is a native. It was a nice place to grow up, he says, with enough stuff for kids to do.

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Could more entrepreneurs help revive the heartland? - The Journal at the Kansas Leadership Center

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Why Mental Health Is at the Center of Pride Month Initiatives by Ugg, Converse and Other Brands – Footwear News

Posted: at 1:33 am

When Ugg was planning its Pride Month initiative this year, the brand knew now was the time to tackle a critical issue mental health.

According to a 2021 CDC survey, over 37% of high school students reported struggles with mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and the issue wasmore common among individuals identifying as LGBTQIA+.

Ugg and other brands took notice, and they arenow raising awareness and devoting financial resources to the cause.

In addition to rolling out a new campaign called Feel Heard, the Deckers Brands-owned label is partnering with The Trevor Project for the first time and donating $125,000 to the organization after previously working in 2020 and 2021 with GLAAD, a leading media advocacy organization accelerating LGBTQ acceptance and equality.

At Ugg, we strive to contribute to a world where everyone feels safe to openly discuss the importance of mental health, said Nicks Ericsson, Uggs senior director of brand purpose. We wanted [the Feel Heard] campaign] to bridge May being Mental Health Awareness Month and June being Pride Month as they were two crucial moments for the LGBTQIA+ community.

Ugg Pride Fluff Yeah slides.

CREDIT: Courtesy of Ugg

A recent Trevor Project survey found that 45% of LGBTQIA+-identifying youth seriously considered suicide within the past year. Additionally, nearly one in five identifying as transgender or nonbinary attempted suicide and all surveyed youths of color had a higher suicide rate than their white peers.

Ericsson noted that diversity and inclusion were essential elements in its Pride outreach. Every one of every race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age should feel heard, he said. Having a diverse campaign ensures that we are amplifying The Trevor Projects mission to a broad consumer group, specifically those who need it the most.

The Trevor Project agreed: This Pride, were doing all we can to support young people who do not have access to accepting communities, a spokesperson told FN. Part of that is engaging in intentional collaborations with major companies to get our message out to parents, families and young people across the country to make sure that LGBTQ young people everywhere know that we are always here for them.

In all, the Ugg campaign features six diverse influencers and advocates, including performer/activist ALOK, models Chlo Vro and Sarina Moralez, artist Isaah and collectors Robert and Orren, who all wear Uggs colorful collection.

This year, several other brands are also partnering with nonprofits focusing on emotional wellbeing and also displaying greater diversity in their campaigns.

Toms is donating a third of its annual profits to several organizations, including Colors,which focuses on expanding communities and mental health counseling for LGBTQIA+ people under 25 years old. Its unisex Unity collection will also beavailable year-round.

The collections goal is to ultimately support nonprofits at the grassrootslevel. Mental health intersects with access to opportunity, and that impacts marginalized communities, including LGBTQ youth and young adults, said Ian Stewart, Toms chief marketing officer.

Toms Fenix Unity slip-on for Pride.

CREDIT: Courtesy of Toms

Authenticity is critical when creating Pride collections to avoid LGBTQIA+ community appropriation, according to Stewart. Its important with any of these cultural moments that brands are supporting those communities all year and not just for a day, a week or a month. Thats where things arent as authentic as they need to be, he said.

Converse also is highlighting mental health in its eighth annual Pride collection, conceived by its LGBTQIA+ employee resource groups own discussions on the importance of community and family. The 2022 initiative focuses on Found Family those who create safe, unified spaces for other LGBTQIA+ individuals.

Coming out of the pandemic, when mental health issues have been reported to disproportionately impact LGBTQIA+ youth, our teams had been discussing the importance of family and community in helping to lift each other up, saidIlana Finley, the brands VP of global communications and social and community impact. The idea of chosen family has been around for quite some time, but its meaning and significance to the LGBTQIA+ community is critical both in the journey to finding Pride, but also as a result of the struggles and isolation during the last couple of years.

LGBTQIA+ youth star in Converses Found Family campaign for Pride 2022.

CREDIT: Courtesy of Converse

The theme of community also permeates Dr. Martens 2022 Generations of Pride film series, in which director Jess Kohlshows how different groups can educate each other in and outside of LGBTQIA+ circles.

For the occasion, the brand has launched the For Pride 1461 oxford, accented with 11 stripes symbolizing the Progress Pride flag (representing the standard rainbow flags six aspects of life and those who are transgender, Black and indigenous). Dr. Martens is also donating $200,000 to The Trevor Project, continuing its partnership for the sixth year in a row.

The incredible crisis support, education and resources The Trevor Project provides LGBTQ youth is more important than ever, said Julia Seltzer, Dr. Martens VP of marketing for the Americas. In addition, we will launch a matching donation promotion during the holidays to raise awareness at a time when LGBTQIA+ youth is especially struggling with depression.

Dr. Martens 1461 for Pride oxford shoe.

CREDIT: Courtesy of Dr. Martens

Indeed, partnering with nonprofits and charities is vital for brands to create authentic collections that prioritize storytelling over sales.

One such organization is GLAAD, which is working with Puma, Crocs, Savage x Fenty and other brands this year. John McCourt, GLAADs deputy VP of strategic partnerships said that forging genuine relationships with the LGBTQIA+ community extends beyond just whos in Pride-focused campaigns it also must encompass the community behind the scenes, from designers to staff.

For instance, Pumas 2022 Pride collection, Together Forever celebrates love, friendship and community through a collection designed by queer artist Carra Sykes. Additionally, the campaign features LGBTQIA+ individuals behind and in front of the camera, including Cara Delevingne, Brinda Iyer, Jalen Dominique, Matt Bernstein, Torraine Futurum and Yassa Almokhamad.

Pride is not as simple as just being proud, its a step you take every day to love yourself, to love your community, to accept others, to lead with love, Delevingne said in a statement. Puma will donate 20% of the collections profits with a $250,000 minimum to GLAAD.

Cara Delevingne stars in Pumas Pride 2022 campaign.

CREDIT: Courtesy of PUMA/MEGA

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Why Mental Health Is at the Center of Pride Month Initiatives by Ugg, Converse and Other Brands - Footwear News

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