From: John Em
To: City Manager"s Office; Meredith Matthews; Alex Stillman; Kimberley White; Stacy Atkins-Salazar; Sarah Schaefer Subject: opioid funds art program
Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 4:47:51 PM
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Consider this my public comment for tonight's council meeting.
I don't presume to know the answer to the problems being addressed here or the nuances of getting funding for programs, but I sure hesitate to support this proposal.
It's ironic that a significant portion of the proposed budget (the toy hauler and truck) is to convert potential human housing and transportation into housing and transportation for the arts program instead. In case you're not familiar with the term, a toy hauler is an RV trailer with a furnace, AC, bed, bathroom, shower, stove, sink, fridge, seating and tables that has a small "garage" added to the back for something like dirt bikes.
Again, ironically, by far the greatest portion of the proposed budget serves paid staff who presumably are already housed and healthy.
Instead, how far would that money go toward infrastructure for some sort of "housing 1st" program? How many tiny homes would that pay for? A tiny homes program would be congruent with Maslov's hierarchy of needs by prioritizing shelter before any kind of "selfactualization" through arts and crafts.
While I appreciate a holistic approach to recovery that includes arts and crafts, a program like this would best be incorporated into a program focused on initially addressing shelter and medical needs directly.
Like a community center in Valley West that ultimately becomes a homeless hangout, a fullblown arts program for the unhoused would tend to normalize and enable homelessness instead of solving the problem. it's a distraction from addressing the need of having a real home.
I love the idea that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When all you know is art, it's easy to make the case that art is the solution to everything. I love art. Stil, if I were unhoused, I'd rather have a roof than a painting.
Let's give these folks some walls first and then think about what they might want to hang on those walls.
As always, thank you for your work.
John Emig
Arcata, CA