Front-page health coverage by The Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader returns this week with news that, “The third fatality to coronavirus in the county late last week happened at Jefferson Healthcare – the first coronavirus death at the facility. The patient had been critically ill, Locke said, but the coronavirus caused the man’s death. The resident, a man in his 60s, passed away Saturday. ‘COVID was, we believe, the cause of death. Had it not been for the COVID infection, that person would have likely survived,’ Locke said.” [“Locke” is Dr. Thomas Locke, Jefferson County’s Public Health Officer.]
That may be, but there’s room for doubt in the case of this already “critically ill” patient, given special CDC instructions “that COVID-19 be recorded as the primary cause of death even if the decedent had other chronic comorbidities. These special instructions exclusive to COVID-19 skewed death certificate results, effectively reclassifying many deaths from a variety of causes, now classified as COVID-19 deaths.”
Even if COVID-19 was the culprit here, this should actually be considered just the first COVID-19 death in the county, given that the other two supposed deaths were a 90+-year-old in hospice and an 80-year-old suffering from surgery complications in Seattle, who was infected in a hospital wide outbreak and hadn’t been near Jefferson County for two months. See “Jefferson County Still May Have No Deaths from Covid.”Port Townsend Free Press, 1/14/21.
The Leader article continued to say that “The death comes amid a week marked by a steady increase of coronavirus cases nationwide…. In Jefferson County, health officials said the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose by 11 over the weekend. Of the 11 new cases, six females and five males tested positive for the coronavirus. The total countywide number of positive COVID-19 tests in Jefferson County Monday was pegged at 374.”
This reporting confuses cases of the disease COVID-19 with positive test results for the virus SARS-CoV-2. Detection of a virus does not constitute a “case” of a disease in lieu of any symptoms, otherwise anyone testing positive for the HIV virus would also count as a full-blown case of AIDS. Moreover, given Jeffco’s unreasonably-high 45 Cycle Threshold for its PCR testing, most of these positive test results may well be false positives. See, “Is Jefferson County Health Department Overstating Covid Case Numbers?” Port Townsend Free Press, 1/25/21.
[Editor’s Note: Our condolences to the family of the deceased. As this death and other deaths being counted as “Covid deaths” are being used to justify restricting the lives and liberties of others it is appropriate to raise questions about whether it is, in fact, a death caused by Covid, and whether it should serve to bolster arguments for extending lockdowns and masking mandates.]
“Wow. You people at New Life Church go all out,” said Mike Johnson, who runs Port Townsend’s homeless shelter.
“That’s what Jesus does for us. We just want to spread it around,” replied Melannie Jackson, Executive Pastor of New Life Church as she delivered the days’ hot food and a special treat of “You are Loved,” “You Matter” and “One Day at a Time” cupcakes.
Why do people go out of their way to help the homeless? They don’t know the people they help, who may or may not be responsible for their circumstances in life. Some of the beneficiaries of these acts of kindness may not be the nicest people, or they may be sweethearts simply broken by the weight of a life they cannot shoulder.
The Christian churches that prepare hot meals for residents of the shelter do it because they believe Jesus loves them and wants them to share His love with others.
There are other reasons people help the homeless, other motivations and other agendas. We have a worsening housing affordability and homelessness crisis in Jefferson County that is fast becoming a miniature of Seattle’s situation. More public funds are being chased by groups for building projects, material and salaries. As Christopher Rufo observed in his excellent analysis of Seattle’s example, “Seattle Under Siege,” this creates a perverse incentive: those groups do better when things get worse. Things are getting worse in Seattle, though it annually pours more than $1 billion into the organizations that are supposed to be ending homelessness. That’s nearly $100,000 a year for every homeless individual man, woman and child on Settle’s streets. Yet there are many more people making less than that who are not homeless and hold jobs and build families. They have hard lives, health problems, addictions, and other vulnerabilities. But they have not let themselves or their loved ones join the ranks of the homeless.
Rufo divides the landscape of Seattle’s helpers into four groups. We have the same groups in Jefferson County. I am sure you will associate the names of local activists and officials with each of these categories:
The socialists. “Using homelessness as a symbol of ‘capitalism’s moral failure,’ the socialists hope to build support for their agenda of rent control, public housing, minimum-wage hikes, and punitive corporate taxation.”
The compassion brigades are “the moral crusaders of homelessness policy, the activists who put signs on their lawns that read: ‘In this house, we believe black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal,’ and so on. They see compassion as the highest virtue; all else must be subordinated to it.”
The homeless-industrial complex are the social service providers who receive the staggering amounts of public funds dedicated to “ending homelessness.” Rufo writes, “When their policy ideas fail to deliver results, they repackage them, write a proposal using the latest buzzwords, and return for more funding. Homelessness might rise or fall, but the leaders of the homeless-industrial complex always get paid….Ultimately, the homeless-industrial complex is a creation of public incentives, constantly on the hunt for bigger contracts.”
The addiction evangelists are “the intellectual heirs of the 1960s counterculture: whereas the beats and hippies rejected bourgeois values but largely confined their efforts to culture—music, literature, photography, and poetry—the addiction evangelists have a more audacious goal: to capture political power and elevate addicts and street people into a protected class. They don’t want society simply to accept their choices; they want society to pay for them.”
Whatever their motivations and methods, whether they get another $100 million or only $1 million, these groups are not producing positive results for Seattle. That city is in a worse crisis every year even though these groups gain more power, influence and resources. None of what they do, Rufo writes, can end homelessness because homelessness is not caused by anything they address as the cause of the problem. It is necessary to quote Rufo at length:
“[T[he reality is that homelessness is a product of disaffiliation. For the past 70 years, sociologists, political scientists, and theologians have documented the slow atomization of society. As family and community bonds weaken, our most vulnerable citizens fall victim to the addiction, mental illness, isolation, poverty, and despair that almost always precipitate the final slide into homelessness. Alice Baum and Donald Burnes, who wrote the definitive book on homelessness in the early 1990s, put it this way:
Homelessness is a condition of disengagement from ordinary society—from family, friends, neighborhood, church, and community. . . . Poor people who have family ties, teenaged mothers who have support systems, mentally ill individuals who are able to maintain social and family relationships, alcoholics who are still connected to their friends and jobs, even drug addicts who manage to remain part of their community do not become homeless. Homelessness occurs when people no longer have relationships; they have drifted into isolation, often running away from the support networks they could count on in the past.”
Missing from the homelessness power and money map Rufo sees in Seattle are churches. They are there, working. They’ve always been at work. But with the annual billion dollars thrown by government at Seattle’s homelessness epidemic, churches seem to have been edged out of the picture, even though what they have to offer may more directly address the forces feeding Seattle’s crises on its streets and public spaces.
It Will Take More Than Cupcakes, or Socks
Food for Port Townsend’s homeless shelter is provided by four or five church groups. They prepare the meals off-site and for the time being just drop it off. There is little more they can do with Covid restrictions in place. The food is set out on tables and residents pretty much help themselves. Before all of the current restrictions, there was more interaction between the Christians and the residents. They made friends, stayed over night, brought residents to church services and classes, took them out for coffee, gave them rides, tried to find answers to their problems. I got to know some of the Shelter’s residents when Marica Reidel, former president of COAST, the coalition of churches supporting the Shelter, invited or brought them to Sunday services.
If what is behind our homelessness crisis is broken people and broken relationships (which comes first?), churches will tell you this is right up God’s alley. Jesus is in the business of fixing brokenness. The Holy Spirit can and will lead people to healing and wholeness.
Those are strange, perhaps offensive statements to many ears, and certainly not the words one hears in the meetings of elected officials or the task forces they have created. We live in a town that is not reluctant to show contempt for Christians and their faith, especially traditional and conservative Christians. One does not have to search long to find local officials mocking Christians on their social media.
But government can’t get it done. Exhibit 1: Seattle.
Our greatest homeless problems seem to be concentrated in the most unchurched cities and areas of this country. That is a reflection of the disaffiliation and disengagement Rufo cites as the driving force in Seattle’s out-of-control homelessness tragedy.
Government, and government-funded programs run by social service agencies, won’t fix the decades of disaffiliation and disengagement that have produced today’s homeless, mental illness and addiction tidal wave. Indeed, as many scholars have shown, government in many ways has created or exacerbated those problems. Vibrant, healthy, sound churches can do much more to address the problem of broken, isolated people than people on government contracts or payrolls.
It would be great if we had a mega-church or even a large church here that could support its own Adult and Teen Challenge Center, a highly successful organization that loudly proclaims its vision of “seeing all people freed from life-controlling issues through the power of Jesus Christ!” The organization has developed a less costly model for areas that cannot support a full residential center, a possibility that may be within reach of our local churches. An energetic Celebrate Recovery program–a Christ-centered 12-step recovery program–is sorely needed in Port Townsend (one has been going in Quilcene for a number of years). Our rural area would be perfect for something like Hope Farms, a residential recovery program for women, many of whom have been victims of rape, sexual abuse, and sex trafficking. These programs work.
The churches behind these programs will insist it is not them producing results. It is God working through them to transform lives. If we truly want to see progress in reducing homelessness and stemming the flow of new recruits to the streets, our secular society needs to put aside its antipathy and respect such statements.
In my limited experience, I’ve seen the benefits of Rescue Missions, a venerable ministry to the homeless operating in many cities. I remember Mark, a young man we found one morning on the loading dock at the back of our church in downtown Albuquerque. He was tweaking terribly. Meth had kept him awake for days. The church brought him in, washed and fed him, gave him some clothes and took him to the Rescue Mission a couple blocks away. I don’t recall exactly how he was enrolled so quickly in their program, but I remember what happened afterwards. He became part of our church family, participated in choir and helped with the weekly feeding of 400 people. The Rescue Mission’s residential program of rigorous Bible study, worship, prayer, life skills training and educational courses was demanding. But it worked. He defeated the streets and worked his way up through an entry level job at a high-rise hotel to be entrusted eventually with the entire operation.
It would be great if we had something like the efforts I’ve described here.
I’ve seen marriages saved, families kept intact, families reunited, children put on the right path, and friendships for life formed in churches. I know of suicides prevented, addictions overcome, and of the lonely and isolated finding a new family that loves them in churches. Government programs don’t and can’t do this. Government doesn’t love. The people you meet in church do because, as Pastor Jackson explained above, they believe Jesus loves them and they want to spread it around.
Revival
Disaffiliation and disengagement have risen as churches have declined. Some churches in the area have dropped their youth and children programs as they’ve failed to attract or keep young families. It may be a revival of healthy, doctrinally sound churches and greater collaboration among the faithful of different denominations that could be the answer to Port Townsend’s growing homelessness, addiction and suicide crises.
Take a look at Seattle. Don’t ever not learn from Seattle. We are still small enough, not yet locked into the errors of that troubled city, that we might still have a chance.
This is not to say government should wrap its arms around churches and fund them. That would be a death embrace. Dependency on government money and the strings that come with it would lead to churches being compromised and losing their truths and power. Look at what European governments have done to churches on that continent. But government can welcome and encourage churches in other ways and pull them more into their discussions and committees. Most churches already have food pantries, homeless outreach and Agape programs–unconditional gifting to help families pay utility bills, rent, buy medicine, etc. They could and should be at the table as respected partners.
Perhaps our small to medium-sized churches could pool resources, or jointly approach one of the national providers of the very successful Christian recovery programs. Or simply come together to buy a car for someone when the cost of the vehicle would exceed the reach of a single congregation.
The excitement about the Port Hadlock Community United Methodist Church welcoming a tiny homes village to its property is a wonderful development. County government showed a willingness to accommodate a unique experiment that did not precisely fit within existing land use regulations. City and county regulations, however, continue to stand in the way of churches doing more. Government could make it possible for churches to provide more services and material support for the homeless by loosening land use regulations. Many Port Townsend churches with large tracts of land are zoned out of doing multi-family or temporary housing. Perhaps a special zoning category for churches/religious organizations could unlock some of that land for very low income and residential recovery program development.
A Fifth Column
Alice Cooper once said that the most radical, rebellious thing he has ever done was become a Christian. Yes, that Alice Cooper.
In a disaffiliating, disengaged society that is producing our rising population of homeless, addicts and the hopeless, a Fifth Column of churches, working behind those enemy lines, sabotaging the forces that push people into despair, building and repairing the bonds that prevent the ups and downs of life from putting someone on the street, this secret weapon may be the only thing that will stem the tide. But it can’t be too secret. It can’t be secret at all.
There’s a lot happening in our local churches already. More is coming. There are many good people here who want to spread the love they profess they know from Jesus Christ. That is the reason they go “all out” for the homeless and others in physical and spiritual need. They’ve watched government try and fail. And it will continue to fail. For government is no substitute for the family and community or the fellowship and friendship of believers that can keep a person afloat in the roughest seas, or pull them out of the water when they are sinking to dark depths below.
(Disclosure: The conversation related at the start of this article came from announcements about the New Life Church homeless ministry. I am a member of that church. I do not intend to suggest that our congregation in any way is doing more or is any better than any other church family. We have much to learn and much, much more to do. Always.)
For years I have been making the Port Townsend to Coupeville ferry crossing often on a weekly basis. I call it the last great adventure on the west coast available to all. Wind, fog and tides often conspire to make the trip unpredictable.
Yes, it can be an adventure, but it has always been easy, even with the Wuhan virus, until two weeks ago when, on the Coupeville side, I pulled up in my vehicle and found an unfamiliar state employee in the ticket booth. He refused to scan my pre-paid card because I didn’t have a piece of fabric covering my mouth and nose.
I’m not asking for sympathy and I don’t feel the need to explain myself to anyone anymore. I do feel the need to shine a light on how we are being conditioned to give up our freedoms through dictates from state and federal government that are not laws, have not been debated by our political representatives, aren’t supported by scientific research even though the wording in the orders says they are, and often are based, if you bother to look, on nothing more than proclamations made on high by whomever the appointed “expert advisor” of the moment may be.
So what changed on the Port Townsend to Coupeville Ferry route other than the familiar friendly faces in the ticket booth?
You might remember a few months back, with the installation of the new occupant in the Oval Office, a flurry of executive orders. One of these was titled, Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing. It is a ponderous document ideal for curing insomnia and was pretty much forgotten by most of us as soon as it was signed on January 20. Unnoticed by many, under the authority established with the ruling, Washington State Ferries and the corresponding terminals were identified as part of the federal transportation system.
I read the order and noted that it requires all persons in Federal buildings or on Federal lands to wear masks, maintain physical distance, and other public health measures. Think about that for a moment, all Federal buildings, all Federal lands.
Besides the vast areas that this dictate covers, I will remind you that at the start of this national panic it was wear a mask if you can’t physically distance. Now the executive branch orders us to wear a mask and physically distance. Oh, and one other thing. There is no sunset clause. No end date. So unless someone else is installed as president in the next four to eight years and bothers to rescind this order, we can be required to wear masks forever anywhere the Federal Government and it’s petty tyrants have any influence.
This is only one example of how mass media marketing of China virus fear has been wildly successful in eliminating our freedoms. Think of all we have given up, most of us willingly; family, friends, health, fitness, education, income, jobs, travel, FDA approval of vaccines, and so much more that we have yet to comprehend, for a virus that has been proven to have a 99% plus survival rate,.
You may have thought that living way out on the Olympic Peninsula would insulate us from what happens in the other Washington. I offer my experience as evidence to the contrary.
I was eventually able to board the ferry, but only after a heated back and forth. I played by the rules and stated that health reasons preclude me from wearing a mask. The booth attendant stated that didn’t matter and refused to scan my ticket a second time. I repeated my statement. The attendant threatened to call law enforcement. I shifted my car into park to await the authorities. He made the call and the person on the other end of the line suggested he might scan my ticket from six feet away. He would not extend his scanner outside the confines of his booth. Upon stretching my arm out of my window as far as possible, the scanner read the ticket. I thanked him. He sent me off with the threat that if I persisted in not wearing a mask while seated in my car at the ticket booth, I could be charged with blocking a federal highway.
The whole experience was so completely ridiculous that it should be something to laugh about. It should be, but I am not laughing.
I leave you with this quote from Peter Skurkas writing for The American Thinker.
So today it’s “you shall wear a face mask.” What will the dictate be tomorrow? Perhaps the real story here is that the elites are conditioning Americans for proper behavior under a Harris/Biden administration. That behavior can be summed up in one word. Obey.
Hooray for the the Port Townsend Main Street Program! Live music downtown is back!
“Buskers on the Block” music series will bring musicians to play instruments and sing on PT’s streets. The series is part of PT Main Street’s “Love Where You Live Campaign.” The music started April 3 with reed instrument musician Jonathan Doyle and will continue through May, depending on weather. Locations will vary between Tyler Plaza, Haller Fountain area and Uptown. Main Street staff will be on hand with cloth masks for those who want them.
The lead photo was taken April 8 of Buck Ellard, a local favorite with an international following. During recent months, his live shows with Rodger “Crash” Bigelow at Mariner’s Cafe in Sequim have been live-streamed and draw viewers from Ireland, Australia and British Columbia. Buck is one of the best, if not the finest male vocalist on the Peninsula. He knows a thousand country songs. He will be back May 15.
April 10 saw “Fun with Key City Players.
Other musicians are scheduled to play as follows:
April 15 Christian Powers will perform an acoustic set of his originals—with elements of psych rock, modern indie and 60s-70s pop, accompanied by a bandmate.
April 17 Christian Powers will perform an acoustic set of his originals—with elements of psych rock, modern indie and 60s-70s pop, accompanied by a bandmate.
April 22 Flugelhorn Phil plays a variety of blues, jazz and soft rock songs (flugelhornphil.com)
April 24 Jack Dwyer is a multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, and teacher based in the Pacific Northwest. Featuring classic and traditional American repertoire as well as original music.
April 29 Jonathan Doyle is saxophonist, clarinetist, jug blower, bass saxophonist, composer, and arranger.
Before Buskers on the Block, a group of musicians, including the author, had been meeting on the Wings Plaza at Tyler and Water every Saturday for the past month to share music. Those gatherings were part of the Freedom Protests against lockdowns.
Calls to police are up 38%. Mental health incidents are up 27%. “Simmer on that for a second,” City Manager John Mauro told City Council at its April 5, 2021, business meeting.
But not a question was raised, not a word of concern was uttered from any of the Councilors. Here’s the link to the video of his report (click on “City Manager Report” on the agenda to get there straightaway.)
There are rarely any questions for the City Manager when he includes in his reports to City Council the number of calls for police. At the April 5 meeting he belittled the attitude that Port Townsend places few demands on its police services. We don’t have crime here, seems to be the fantasy held by a good segment of the community. That’s the fantasy reflected in the naive Nhatt Nichols cartoons on the editorial page of The Leader. The reality is, as Mauro stated, there are about 158 calls to police between his reports to Council.
In its report to the City Council, entitled “21st Century Policing” the Port Townsend Police Department tallied an average of 6,411 calls for service for each of the years from 2017 to 2020. A 38% increase equates to an additional 2,436 calls annually for a police force already short on staff, with sometimes one officer responsible for the entire city. The “21st Century Policing” report was submitted at a time when City Council was examining cutting resources to the police department, even perhaps disarming officers, eliminating the school resource officer position and subjecting officers to other restrictions in their ability to protect and serve. (See our coverage here, here and here.) Council, fortunately for the citizens of Port Townsend, backed off. Good thing, as Port Townsend’s police are now needed more than ever in recent history. One may have to go back to the days of “Bloody Townsend” to find comparable levels of crime, substance abuse, addiction and severe social ills in this little town.
The Leader’s police log reporting, which usually selects only quaint incidents, shows a steady uptick of serious crimes, confrontations with transients and mental health crises. Many of the problems are concentrated in neighborhoods around the Fairgrounds where crime has increased tremendously. As reported here in a review of police reports for 2020 to the end of October, all sorts of crimes are being committed in the homeless/transit camp of the Fairgrounds, ranging from assaults to thefts to drug dealing. After our article was published a 20-year old woman was found by the campground manager face down, dead, cold as ice. In addition to the crimes there are the calls every week for one mental health or substance abuse crisis after another.
The latest information from sources in the campgrounds is that four drug dealers are now operating there. Our past information on the drug dealing was accurate. The name we had for the most active dealer turned out to be a friend of the dead woman. Other information passed on to one of the groups attempting to oversee the Fairgrounds included the name of one of the men later arrested for kidnapping and blinding another man against a backdrop of meth usage and dealing.
The Fairgrounds encampment is becoming a permanent feature of Port Townsend’s landscape.
The problems are not restricted to the Fairgrounds and nearby neighborhoods. Crime is up across the community. Even The Leader has been paying attention with front page coverage of incidents like the kidnapping and torture of a Port Townsend man and the invasion of our county by criminals from elsewhere. We are seeing more burglaries. There are more assaults. Mailboxes are no longer safe from theft (one man pilfered the contents of 50 mailboxes before he was caught). There is a growing perception that Port Townsend today is much less safe than it was a year ago.
Meth use is increasing. With the State Supreme Court’s legalization of possession, a tool police once had for getting addicts into some type of care is gone. Problems related to addiction are on the steady rise.
The famous “Port Townsend Vibe” is experiencing cancelling waves of fear, anxiety, anger and helplessness.
City Council is doing nothing. The City’s growing social ills are never on its agenda.
Port Townsend could barely handle its problems before. We have always lacked the resources and commitment from elected officials to address addiction, substance abuse, crime and mental illness. The problems have been dumped on police and ignored. We don’t have crime here.Port Townsend is not Port Angeles. We’re different. We’re better.
Calls to police are up 38% over last year; mental health incidents are up 27%. Simmer on that for a second.
