Shoes placed on the steps of Columbus City Hall in 2021 represent individuals who fatally overdosed in Bartholomew County. | Republic file photo
Formation of the Bartholomew County Suicide and Overdose Fatality Review Team, which met for the first time last month, is a welcome development in a county where overdose deaths continue to set records year after year.
Treatment professionals, law enforcement and other stakeholders are involved in this effort to better understand commonalities between deaths and gather information and data so that this trend doesn’t continue to spiral in the wrong direction.
The team will include representatives from ASAP, Columbus Regional Health, the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office, the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department, Council for Youth Development Bartholomew County, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., Centerstone and others.
It’s clear that fentanyl is to blame for the rising deaths. But there is so much more to learn by sharing information, and we applaud these public servants for coming together in this way to address what has become a chronic epidemic.
Let’s agree to Be SMART
Few topics divide people as much as guns. However, we think everyone can agree to Be SMART, especially when there are children and guns in a home.
At a City Hall event last week, community leaders launched an effort that encourages gun owners to be SMART in these ways:
- Secure all guns in your home and vehicles;
- Model responsible behavior around guns;
- Ask children about the presence of unsecured guns in other homes;
- Recognize the risks of teen suicide; and
- Tell your peers to be SMART.
Officials demonstrated and passed out gun locks in an event where representatives with groups as diverse as Moms Demand Action and the National Rifle Association could agree on the importance of keeping guns out of kids’ hands.
Sheriff Matt Myers said gun locks were available from his office, and if someone cannot travel to the department to get a gun lock, officers can deliver them, and people with multiple guns should also ask for as many locks as they need.
So gun owners have no excuse not to Be SMART and responsible. Learn more about this program at besmartforkids.org.
Affordable housing donation laudable
The city’s donation of vacant property in the 1300 block of Pearl Street to create affordable housing for a first-time homebuyer last week is a commendable transaction we’d like to see more of.
The board of works signed over land at 1320 Pearl Street to Southern Indiana Housing and Community Development Corp. In conjunction Lincoln Central Neighborhood Homebuyer Program and the C4 Building Trades Program Corp., the plan is to build the fifth affordable house in the LCNFC Collaborative Housing Project next fall.
The city doesn’t often have property like this to dispose of, but whenever it does, we believe community-based affordable housing efforts like this should be the city’s top priority. Helping people of modest means become homeowners is one of the surest ways to build community, and we commend the city for doing so.
