AZ Town Hall Takes Action to Meet Their Community in the Middle
On Friday, Sept. 17, Arizona Town Hall hosted a public meeting and workshop for Arizona residents interested in learning more about plans to tackle the issues surrounding the intersection of homelessness, mental health, and substance use.
According to the AZ Town Hall website, they are “a non-partisan, non-profit organization that brings diverse people together to solve critical and often divisive policy issues.” Their mission statement was clear during the town hall meeting. While the attendance was small, there was plenty of diversity in age and background that created a solid foundation for helpful discussion and community-building. Unlike a traditional town hall where audience members are simply absorbing information, AZ Town Hall engaged its attendees and made genuine efforts to know what they had to say.
AZ Town Hall generally focuses on large-scale events with hundreds of attendees, but according to Tara Jackson, AZ Town Hall president, they are working towards more community collaboration for their projects. In her opening statement, Jackson identified education as a key point in making a difference in Arizona’s mental health system. This provided a starting point for further discussion as Jackson alongside Steve Woods, founder of Tech4L, and Daran Wastchak, Insight Consulting Partners president, led the attendees in discussion.
They began by providing documentation of a background report done by AZ Town Hall and the Arizona State University Morrison Institute for Public Policy. The report was created in 2019 and the town hall hosts made sure to note that these numbers have only grown since then. When looking at the report, it’s clear that Jackson stands corrected in wanting to look at education as one of the major obstacles in obtaining proper mental health support is the lack of knowledge of what is available.
An attendee of the town hall and employee at Sunbelt Holdings, Heidi Kimball, agreed that education plays a vital role in how solutions are made for homelessness and mental health. When looking at the upcoming election, she stated that there needs to be better media literacy in understanding what information is being disseminated and that people need to stop getting sucked into the stereotypes reinforced by inaccurate news and scare tactics.
“That’s not an empathetic way to deal with the problem,” Kimball said as she criticized governor candidate Kari Lake for reinforcing the idea that the solution to the homeless problem is to “just arrest them.” Kimball stressed the importance of not allowing stigmas to influence voting or opinions on those who have less and are on the streets. The sentiment that there needs to be an influx in empathy and care towards the homeless population was shared amongst almost all of the participants at the AZ Town Hall.
This is why AZ Town Hall hosted this small meeting, amongst others around the state. They wanted to garner support and evidence that there needs to be a greater push for adequate mental health and homeless support. Wastchak said, “Everything you’re doing today, even if you don’t make it to the annual town hall, which is a big gathering, you may not make it to that but do know that your collaboration and your discussions today that information will be a part of the final town hall report.” He was referencing the 114th Statewide Town Hall focusing on the topic of mental health, substance use, and homelessness, which is occurring in Tempe in November.
AZ Town Hall is working to tackle the hard topics and collaborate to find solutions, and with this one town hall meeting they have made another step towards a better Arizona.