Abstract Art for Sale -- August 2026

 I am selling affordable abstract expressionism art and an invitation to view art at my studio. Here are a handful of recent pieces. Prices from $75 - $400.

Summer 2026  24"x24" Acrylics, gouache on plywood. $400

Libraries are Essential

 

Libraries are Essential

Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to serve as the Librarian of Congress was sacked by Donald Trump on Thursday night, May 8^th this year. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that her continued service did not fit the needs of the American people, did not serve the interests of the American taxpayer, and the President is well within his rights to fire her.

In published remarks in June, Ms. Hayden said she got a short email from Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel, Trent Morse: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

No contact in person before or after, no phone call, just one email. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, is now in charge of the facility.

In an editorial by author George Saunders on May 13^th, he tell us that one of the things he and Dr. Hayden bonded over was the idea that knowledge is power; that in a democracy, the more we know, the better we are.

Firing the Librarian of Congress was alarming. Are our libraries under threat from this administration? Or was it just another cultural makeover, as when Trump fired Colleen Shogan, Archivist of the United States in February. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was put in charge as Acting Archivist.

Ms. Shogan stated that no cause or reason was cited. “It has been an honor serving as the 11^th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets – I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people.”

In 1949, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), published a Public Library Manifesto: “The library is a prerequisite to let citizens make use of their right to information and freedom of speech. Free access to information is necessary in a democratic society, for open debate and creation of public opinion.”

When we read, we gain access to information and knowledge and culture and history and art. In person or online, librarians make suggestions about what we might want to read, based on asking us questions, and by pointing us to the material and by telling us how we can search for ourselves.  

Caring and helping are normal human instincts. Most everyone has strong feelings and memories associated with the libraries they visited and the help they received.

Susan Orlean wrote The Library Book, and in it she says that a library is a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years, even when you’re alone. And she concludes by stating that all the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library’s simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.

James Baldwin said: “I went at least three or four times a week (135^th Street branch of the New York Public Library) and I read everything there. I mean, every single book in that library. In some blind and instinctive way, I knew that what was happening in those books was also happening all around me. And I was trying to make a connection between those books and the life I saw and the life I lived.”

Ursula Le Guin: “A library is a focal point, a sacred place to a community, and its sacredness is its accessibility, its publicness. It’s everybody’s place. I remember certain libraries, vividly and joyfully, as my libraries --- elements of the best of my life.”

Ray Bradbury:  “Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

There are two national groups that advocate for libraries: the Public Library Association (PLA) and the American Library Association (ALA). Island County libraries are part of the Sno-Isle Library system which has 23 branches, the Library on Wheels, and Express Lockers at three of their libraries.  

In support of the Sno-Isle Library branches, there are sixteen Friends of the Library chapters. These are nonprofit volunteer organizations that bring together people who support and promote the services and programs of their respective libraries. Money raised by these groups goes toward programming for all ages, summer reading programs for children and teens, library capital improvements, special project funding and more. This link provides contact information for the Friends of the Library groups.

https://www.sno-isle.org/friends-of-the-library/

The Sno-Isle website lists their Vision, Mission, and Values. Their mission is to engage and inspire our communities through equitable access to knowledge and resources. Their values are straightforward: Community, Equity, Inclusion, Welcoming, Learning, and Respect. I believe the majority of Americans embrace and live these values.

 

My Antonia, by Willa Cather

(If you haven’t read this book, know that spoilers abound in this overview.)

I find it rare, when I am reading, to be gripped by feelings and longings I don’t understand. Non-fiction and memoirs are where I usually hang out. Sometimes good fiction can plumb the depths of whatever my unconscious is holding onto. My Antonia, by Willa Cather (1873-1947), was published in 1918, and it caught me unawares.

A description: “All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed.” The setting is southern Nebraska, near Red Cloud.

An evocative writer makes you stop reading and think about what you are imagining and feeling. Willa Cather developed her talent through years of hard work and determination. In 1896 she got a position in Pittsburgh at a women’s magazine: Home Monthly. She wrote short stories, poetry, articles, and continued working as a journalist for other publications. She also taught at Pittsburgh’s Central High School for a year, and taught English and Latin at Allegheny High School. She published her first book of poetry in 1903, followed by a collection of short stories in 1905. She joined McClure’s Magazine as an editor and her first novel (Alexander’s Bridge) was serialized by McClure’s in 1912.

“…Cather learned to create on her pages a new-found sense of intimacy, one borne of the relation between intimates. This is first really seen in My Antonia.” 

(From the section “Emerging Writer, 1914-1922”, Willa Cather Center website: https://www.willacather.org/about/willa-cather-biography.)

Kathleen Norris wrote a Foreword to the 1995 paperback edition of My Antonia. She says: “Intent on telling the truths of a particular time and place, she made her own prose as spare as the land about which she was writing, and became a pioneer in American fiction.” Norris mentions that Cather had the great good fortune to have lived among the first generation of white settlers in 1880s Nebraska. In her Foreword, Norris also states: “In many ways the world of My Antonia is still with us, a neglected but significant part of America.” 

Ms. Norris grew up in Lemmon, North Dakota, a small town near the southern border of that state. I grew up in Minnesota and immigrants, starting in the 1860s, moved into the state from Europe and Great Britain. Many settled on farmland, thanks to the Homestead Act of 1862 and the liberation the railroads provided after the Civil War. They usually banded together and were suspicious of others, even as they needed help outside their own enclaves.

But it is Antonia who left a lasting impression on Willa Cather. Cather writes: “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade – that grew stronger with time…she lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true…but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things…All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions.”

Someone like Antonia often leaves us with an intense yearning, a need to be near them, to feel their essence. Attraction to another person seems to work on a number of simultaneous levels. It can be visual, physical, appreciation of speech and style, gestures, even sexual attraction can be part of it. Whatever their special quality, it pulls us to them by proximity or thought. Why is that?

PBS American Masters  did a review of her life. In it, David McCullough speaks about the suicide the Grandfather commits: “Kills himself, commits suicide. Can’t take it – some people are crushed by it. It will either make you or break you. That’s a very American theme...And what really counts in the long run, is the feeling it leaves with you – that feeling that you have about the book, My Antonia. Ten years after you’ve read it, you can still feel that. Why? Because of the transforming magic of art. Because Willa Cather took that story and made it immortal.”

PBS Documentary:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1AJDk9QCkk&t=3343s

For several days, I have wanted to write just one more thing about Willa Cather and this novel. What I settled on was something Willa Cather wrote in her Introduction to the book in 1918. She is taking a long train journey with her friend, Jim, the narrator of the book.

“…our talk kept returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had known long ago and whom both of us admired. More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood. To call her name was to call up pictures of people and places, to set a quiet drama going in one’s brain.”

                                                        Civil War? Here?

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, 2024 Large Print edition

I have never felt strongly drawn to reading about the United States Civil War during the 1860s. I watched the Ken Burns’ Civil War series on PBS and thrilled to the history he and his team brought to life. Books about the American Civil War abound, and as best-selling author Erik Larson says in an Introduction to his non-fiction book, The Demon of Unrest: “I suspect your dread will be all the more pronounced in light of today’s political discord….which has led some benighted Americans to whisper once again of secession and civil war.” Even knowing the outcome, the reader senses the attitudes and beliefs at play in the drama that led up to the attack on Fort Sumter.

As Covid unfolded in early 2020, Erik Larson began to wonder: “Exactly how did the Civil War begin? What really happened at Fort Sumter?” Ordering a bound copy of: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Mr. Larson found letters, telegrams, and reports that captured in vivid detail the march toward fratricide. He had his narrative spine for the book. As pandemic restrictions eased, he was able to visit the Charleston Historical Society, the Library of Congress, and consulted other primary source material archives. Secondary sources were also sought out and listed at the end of the book. Mr. Larson also informs the reader: “This is a work of nonfiction. As always, anything between quotation marks comes from some form of historical document…”

As I read the book, I consulted the April 1861 map of Charleston Harbor provided in the front of the book, and Google maps of the area for reference, as well as the National Park Service website, Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie: https://www.nps.gov/fosu/index.htm  Any legitimate material consulted will aid the reader’s imagination in picturing the events as they are described in the book.

First thing that struck me was that the 2020 United States census shows a total United States population of 331,449,281. The 1860 census lists 31,443,321 people in 33 states and 10 territories. Of this number, 3,953,760 were slaves and the states that had the greatest number of slaves by percentage, were: South Carolina, 402,406 (57.2%); Mississippi, 436,631 (55.2%); Louisiana, 331,726 (46.9%); Alabama, 435,080 (45.1%); Georgia, 462,198 (43.7%); Florida, 61,745 (44%); North Carolina, 331,059 (33.4%); Virginia, 490,865 (30.7%); Texas, 182,566 (30.2%); Arkansas, 111,115 (25.5%); Tennessee, 275,710 (24.8%); Kentucky, 225,483 (19.5%), Maryland, 87,189 (12.7%).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_census

According to Mr. Larson, there were 440 South Carolina planters who each held one hundred or more enslaved Blacks within a single district. They called themselves “the chivalry” and held jousting competitions and gave themselves military titles and loved elaborate uniforms. Honor was what they valued above all other human traits. When insulted, rage flared and duels commenced. After the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 (which sold 300,000 copies in the first three months), Mr. Larson writes: “In the North, it confirmed readers’ worst imagining about the true nature of slavery; in the South, it was spurned as yet another Northern failure to understand how slavery benefited the enslaved themselves…”

After John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry in October of 1859, the South was galvanized. State militias received new recruits, stockpiles of arms increased, vigilance committees were formed. Charleston’s inhabitants were incensed and stepped up the aggressive interrogation of outsiders and free Blacks. Traveling salesmen were required to get a license. Lincoln’s election in November of 1860 intensified Southern discontent about the Union.

Although shipping improved with steam power, and the telegraph speeded information access, these were early days for how people received information. Rumors and false assumptions were widespread. South Carolina kept trying for acceptance as a sovereign state, and Lincoln’s administration did not want to make any moves that could be seen as starting hostilities. 

When Major Robert Anderson moved his men and their families, on his own initiative, from Fort Moultrie to Fort Johnson, no one suspected that the real destination was Fort Sumter.  

As the sun set on December 26^th, he informed his officers what he had secretly planned and set in motion. It took two trips on three boats to get his two companies of soldiers to Fort Sumter. Once there, the vessel with the forty-five women and children set off from Fort Moultrie for Fort Sumter. By morning, smoke was rising from the Fort Moultrie burning gun carriages, and the flag was missing. Everyone was safely within the walls of Fort Sumter. 

Less than four months later, South Carolina weapons opened fire on Fort Sumter on April 12^th, 1861.

In “A Note To Readers” at the beginning of his book, Mr. Larson tells us that while watching the Jan. 6^th 2021 Capitol riots: “I was appalled by the attack, but also riveted. I realized that the anxiety, anger, and astonishment that I felt would certainly have been experienced in 1860-1861 by vast numbers of Americans…I invite you now to step into the past, to that time of fear and dissension, and experience the passion, heroism, and heartbreak – even humor – as if you were living in that day and did not know how the story would end.”

If you would like to hear and watch Erik Larson talk about The Demon of Unrest, click on this link from the Library of Congress (Sept. 4^th, 2024).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHQv5oQd3Zg&t=2294s

A History of Reading by Steven Roger Fischer, 2019 revised edition

In an A.O. Scott essay about reading, published in the N.Y. Times Book Review section on June 21^st, 2023, Mr. Scott mentioned Mr. Fischer’s book: A History of Reading. I ordered the book from Sno-Isle Interlibrary Loan service. Mr. Fischer is a New Zealand linguist and former Director of the Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures in Auckland, New Zealand.

In his Introduction the author says: “What music is to the spirit, reading is to the mind. Reading challenges, empowers, bewitches, enriches.” In seven well-documented chapters, Mr. Fischer starts with Egypt and runs us up to present time. He tells us that writing prioritizes sound, and reading prioritizes meaning. And a key point to remember – for most of written history, reading was reciting. If scribes bore false witness, they were killed.

Reading represents freedom to me; the freedom to absorb anything and the freedom to think about whatever has been read. No one should be dictating what you can read, right? But some have raised the issue about what is appropriate reading material for those under a certain age. As a parent, I understand their concern. Some parents want the libraries to withhold or move material they feel is inappropriate for children. But I don’t like their approach. It’s confrontational and draws a line in the sand. And they get to decide for us.

Many of us expect parents to make suggestions and guide their children when it comes to choosing material. Some parents take no responsibility for kids’ choices. Schools may provide suggestions for age-appropriate reading lists. But when you expect school boards to arbitrarily censor books, you are putting the responsibility for choosing or discarding material in the hands of citizen-driven pressure groups. Where is the freedom in that?

  In Mr. Scott’s essay he says that: “Reading liberates and torments us, enlightens and       bewilders us, makes and unmakes our social and solitary selves.”

Most of us are nodding our heads in agreement. That book that looked so promising on the shelf, ended up sparking feelings of disgust, anger, or maybe horror. Some books chime within us and spark feelings that we can scarcely understand. Scott makes the case that: “Reading, like democracy or sexual desire, is an unmanageable, inherently destabilizing force in human life.” Reading holds risk as well as promise. Reading gives us a connection with another person and their imagination and opinions. The only price we pay is our time. And yes, a risk is involved, but taking a risk implies the freedom to do so. That is the crucial element: free to choose for ourselves.

Mr. Fischer makes the same argument. “A reader can choose to understand, react to, and interpret the author’s work however the reader wants….No text, not even the most fundamental religious, dictates to a reader. It is the reader who chooses how to react, what to think. The wonder in reading is that the writer is never in control. It is the reader who plays God.”

We choose to believe, cast aside, denounce or embrace the material we read. There’s freedom of speech, freedom of the press and there’s freedom of the mind. 

(Steven Roger Fischer also wrote: A History of Writing in 2021. Also available via the Sno-Isle Library system using the Inter-Library Loan portal.)

 

Poverty, By America, by Matthew Desmond, Random House, 2023.

Mr. Desmond, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, won a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier 2016 book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. It tells the stories of eight families who, in some cases, had to spend 70% of their income for rent. And because women are paid less than men and are often raising children, they pay a greater emotional price.

Mr. Desmond grew up pretty poor, in a small railroad town in Arizona, and after his family’s home was lost to foreclosure, Poverty stressed and diminished them. He wondered: is this how families dealt with hard times? Why should there be so much hardship and desperation in this land of money?

Of his time later living in Milwaukee, Mr. Desmond says, “I saw a level of poverty that was incredibly cruel, and painful, and it drilled home in me that this is a morally urgent issue; this isn’t just about people having enough money – this is about pain, on top of eviction, on top of hunger, on top of incarceration, on top of, just, death, really…”  (C-Span “After Words” March 29^th, 2023).

Why is there so much poverty in this incredibly wealthy nation? This question drove him to write his book. And he also said: “This book is about how some lives are made small, so that others may grow…There is an incredible amount of unnecessary scarcity in this land of abundance…(and) this book is about why and how we can finally abolish it. This is a call to rebalance our safety net. I want a country that does a lot more to fight poverty than it does to guard fortunes.”

Mr. Desmond cites a study that says: “…if the top 1% just paid the taxes they owed, not pay more taxes, just stop evading taxes, we as a nation could raise an additional 175 billion. That’s more than enough money to re-establish the child tax credit; that’s enough to double our investment in affordable housing and still have money left over.” (Poverty, By America  by Matthew Desmond. April 18^th, 2023 interview on “Democracy Now.”)

How do we subsidize the wealthy? One way is the $1.8 trillion per year supplied by tax breaks – which is about double what we spend on the military. Wealthier people get more of these tax breaks from the government, than poor people get. “We could afford [to abolish poverty in America] if the richest among us took less from the government, if we designed a welfare state to do less to subsidize affluence and more to eradicate poverty.”

Another area in which the poor are disadvantaged is in housing. Private equity swooped in after the financial crisis of 2008 and bought up enormous amounts of housing, reducing the overall inventory. Mr. Desmond believes that expanding  opportunities for first time homeowners and working families could ease some of this situation. But banks prefer to lend money for expensive real estate rather than lower cost mortgages. There’s a much larger financial return from financing big ticket homes and commercial projects.

Aid Left on the Table

There are a lot of different kinds of financial aid for the poor, but it is often hard and confusing to get the money. He says they are entitled to it, but in many cases are not told how to apply for it. Mr. Desmond endorses increasing the understanding needed to apply for aid, and cutting the red tape.

“We do a very poor job in connecting families with programs that they need and deserve…Most Americans want a higher minimum wage, most Americans think the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes, most Americans, Democrat and Republican, believe now that poverty isn’t caused by a moral failing – that it’s caused by unfair circumstances.”

Concerns about Basic Needs

His 2023 book, tackles poverty in two sections: “Facts About Poverty in Your State” and “Join the Fight.” Links are provided to learn more about the issues related to poverty in the first section, and lists of organizations, both on a national and state level, that advocate for change are featured in the second. Mr. Desmond is passionate about what he has learned and argues that we may be ignorant of how poverty is allowed to exist in America, but that we can change our awareness and do something concrete.    https://endpovertyusa.org/

In his epilogue, Mr. Desmond says that poverty will be abolished in America only when a mass movement stirs. He believes that all of us “…can learn from, support, and join movements led by those who have intimate knowledge of poverty’s many slights and humiliations... mass movements are composed of scores of people finding their own way to pitch in.”

What I hear from Island County residents is this: I have just enough for myself and my family. Movements for change creep along at glacial speed and the folks who might create some change, aren’t compelled to do what we ask for. There’s some societal pressure for change, but there’s no leverage to change. I’m just one person, in a county of 87,000 people.

Mr. Desmond makes the point that: “Profiting from someone else’s pain diminishes all of us.” And at the end of the C-Span interview he says: “I think the book (Poverty, By America) makes the case that an America without poverty makes for a freer America, a safer America, a happier America, and it’s an America that’s committed to each other’s flourishing.”

Those who live too close to disaster’s edge usually don’t have much hope. Their constant focus is a four-sided box of not enough work, shelter, food, and a running car. Add the stress of providing for children, and you have people who feel trapped and desperate. Social change holds out the hope that we are moving closer to having enough –- enough safety and security and enough satisfaction through a shared community of relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Next books I will be reviewing: Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in A Divided Nation by John Freeman, and Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis by Beth Macy. Will also be covering: A History of Reading.               

Mike Diamanti

Some Suggested Reading for “Concerns”

I received hardly any suggestions for issues to tackle in this blog, so I decided to run out a list of books that hit the topics I hear in conversations during my daily rounds. All books listed are available through the Sno-Isle system.

Homeless

Best recent book for this volatile issue is: Homelessness is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns, 2022. The authors, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern, combine their talents to shed light on the housing market conditions, which they consider an overlooked consideration when tackling homelessness issues. Their position is that mental health and drugs often get the spotlight, while housing availability can be overlooked. Both work in the Seattle area.

They believe that public perception, funding, and placing the problem within a broader societal context are the most important concerns that will help. They say: “…approaches that work have not been sufficiently scaled to the magnitude of the crisis.” And they mention that, on the West Coast, there is strong pressure to demonstrate progress because residents are getting increasingly frustrated.

They cite the example of the concerted effort to reduce homelessness among veterans. Since 2009, the number of homeless veterans has dropped by 50 per cent. Civilians receive far less attention and support during policymaking periods. And at a federal level there has been more money to address the veteran homeless issues.

They finish their book by stating: “Access to housing – independent of one’s ability to pay – is the bedrock of these policy successes. From the veteran’s example, we know that investments in housing, rental subsidies, and systems thinking can substantially reduce the population of people experiencing homelessness…People design cities and structure markets. They can also choose to change them.”

Island County has a robust Housing Assistance menu of services as well as the Veterans Assistance help. Here are the links:

https://www.islandcountywa.gov/383/Housing-Assistance

https://www.islandcountywa.gov/200/Veterans-Assistance

 

An Open Question          May 3^rd, 2023

One of the noun definitions for concern is: a matter that engages a person’s attention, interest or care, or that affects a person’s welfare or happiness.

What are your concerns? What can you do about them?

A month ago I picked up a book: How To Read Non-fiction Like a Writer, by Thomas C. Foster, 2020. I read lots of non-fiction: history, memoir, eyewitness accounts, essays and satire. And because I feel the constant urge to write, I figured this would be a good read. It was and it is.

Mr. Foster sums up the problem by telling us that what we need when we read non-fiction is to think better. And we can think better by asking good questions.  Then he encourages us to act like an editor. It’s up to us to filter out baloney, misdirection and straight up lies. He further refines it: …interrogate the text, asking that series of questions about appropriateness and accuracy and logic that must be asked. (p. 249)

I simply ask: Does this make sense (to you, to me)? What type of writing am I reading? What is the source of the statement or claim? Is there a bias in play, the author’s or my own? What are the credentials of the writer? Why did she or he write the piece? Who do I think the piece was written for?  

Having spent almost a month casting about for the next person or organization to interview or highlight, I can’t choose the next subject. Whidbey Island has a large number of organizations, public and private that address not only problems, but needs. The everyday problems I read about and that society grapples with often seem too complex, too interwoven and unsolvable in the sense that no one agrees on even minimal steps to address the solutions. Compromise used to work as a method to reach a solution. Now it’s a dirty word.

A couple I know are seriously considering the best place to live outside of the United States. They want to live where children are not gunned down in their schools. Others recite the latest horrors they have seen on the news, ending with a shake of the head, hands thrown in the air. And yet we go on.

The things I hear Island County residents complain about include: crime, drugs, the police, the homeless, hunger, no affordable housing, politics, fringe groups, too many visitors and the ferry system.

Very few express any kind of satisfaction with the condition of the world. But they also say that we are so lucky to live on Whidbey Island. They cite the natural beauty, small town atmosphere, it’s a good place to raise kids, and friendliness. Everywhere else is awful, but Island County shines.

Author David Brooks believes that Americans are faced with a clear choice going forward. He says: …we’re in the middle of a moral struggle over who we are as a nation.  What are the two choices? Brooks says that one view is that we live in a dog-eat-dog world…that might makes right. The opposite of this is a belief in human dignity and that each of us matters. Cooperation rather than isolation.

Yes, we live in a polarized country. Changing someone’s mind is usually not possible. The point is to work together on what we agree is important and worthy of our energy. What is important to you, what matters to you, as a resident of Island County?

Mike Diamanti  

Please send me your suggestions for additional “Island County Concerns” topics and subject matter via email:

islandcountyconcerns@gmail.com

 

 

(Spin Café, photo by M. Diamanti).

The SPIN Café (Serving People in Need) cares for the most exposed in our community. Their mission is: “To meet the basic needs of food, shelter and offer a sense of self-worth to the vulnerable people in our community.” SPIN occupies a large, open room at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Oak Harbor, and is open Monday-Friday from 6:30 am to 5:30 pm. I met with SPIN’s Executive Director, Michele Hines on March 23^rd, 2023.

Mike: I’m wondering how you ended up involved with SPIN and its mission.

Michele: I spent a lot of my adult life involved with a real estate company. I took time off to raise my kids, homeschooled them. I look for ways to get things done and how to make things work. I’ve done property management, I’ve done bookkeeping. My strong suit is organizational and financial skills. I also was the administrator and bookkeeper here at St. Stephen’s.

After Vivian Rogers-Decker left in 2019, SPIN’s board of directors asked me to become Treasurer. I came in purely to help SPIN get their finances in order so that they could move forward. At the same time, St. Stephen’s is big on outreach, and that’s where my religious background comes in; I love to help people, I love to give to people. These are natural things for me. I told the Rector here the other day, that SPIN is just like having Sunday coffee hour (held after Sunday service) all week long. It is simply about being kind to people.

All during COVID, while we had a sandwich program going on down at the beach with our partner churches, I was looking for a job, and I couldn’t find one that suited me. I was asked if I wanted to be Executive Director for SPIN. What really sparked my interest was to grow the business of SPIN by saying, OK, let’s start new and grow this business. I was asked around November of 2020. We re-opened here, in February of 2021. It was natural for me because I know this building really well.

What I’ve learned in the last two years is that we’ve moved into a label of sorts: homeless service provider. That’s where the state and federal money is. I don’t know that SPIN is an entity that the community can support a 100%, even with community grants. My budget is feeling a pinch right now because of the cost of living. There are lots and lots of HUD grants out there for housing. It’s hard enough to get an apartment building built, let alone get it funded by HUD.

Mike: SPIN was awarded a three year, $635,000 HUD grant in February. What is the atmosphere as you look for a place to rent or lease, with the new HUD grant?

Michele: Maybe two years ago, the WA legislature passed House Bill 1220 which mandated that cities provide for homeless services. That’s always at the front of my mind when I’m talking to Oak Harbor City people. I will push back if anyone says SPIN can’t be here.

Mike: You mentioned that it has been difficult finding another location. It seems that you have so much community support across the board, from individuals, organizations, non-profits, and business. Are there people advocating on your behalf to find a place?

Michele: Yes, there are. Perhaps the locations prohibit where we go. We’re looking at all options. We want to be good neighbors. We don’t want our homeless guests interfering with businesses. It’s getting narrowed down to stand alone buildings. I’m looking at the county health ordinances, and what the City of Oak Harbor needs, before we make an official move on a place. Everybody is moving cautiously. And you are absolutely right; we have a lot of community support.

Mike: Island County offers a lot of help.

Michele: Island County Human Services are huge supporters. We work with them, they manage the HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) data base, they do the Homeless Point in Time Count, they have social workers, we really work well with them.

As far as SPIN Café goes, we want to avoid the tent cities and the rampant drug use we see in King, Snohomish, and Whatcom Counties. We want to manage our homeless population and manage our issues to resolve them. We’re not going to resolve it a 100%, but if we work together to manage it, we can make it better because we’re all working together.

Mike: So much of your work and Island County’s efforts are about relationships. The general public often does not know about those ongoing relationships, and how effective they are.

Michele: If we have a problem with a guest that is a known drug user, we can call any  number of organizations. We can call the Recovery Navigator program, we can call the police department, we can call the sheriff’s department, to mitigate the situation and prevent them from causing trouble somewhere else. We collaborate with each other all the time. I can call David Thorson anytime; he worked here in 2022, but now he’s with the Recovery Navigator Program.

(https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Humanservices/Pages/Recovery-Navigator.aspx#:~:text=Recovery%20Navigator%20staff%20facilitate%20and,treatment%20and%20recovery%20support%20services.&text=Coordination%20and%20communication%20between%20law,medical%20providers%20and%20community%20partners.)

Mike: What you witness each day can affect you. How do you handle the stress?

Michele: I think about that every day when I get ready in the morning. How the privilege of preparing for your day, privately, in your space, is not available to most of our guests.

Mike: Your guests can do laundry at Dutch Maid Laundry and Dry Cleaning on Thursday mornings?

Michele: Yes, right.

Mike: And they can use the Oak Harbor pool?

Michele: If they are new to us, we send them to the pool with our Shelter Manager to make sure they will follow the rules and be a reliable user. Once we know they can be trusted, they can go to the pool twice a week, but most go once a week.  Island County pays for this service.

Mike: You mentioned that there were about eight individuals you consider low income, or “working poor”. They often have jobs but can’t afford housing. Some live in their cars. Has that number gone up or down?

Michele: Now it’s down to about two people. And that number does go up and down. Island County has a housing specialist present here at SPIN twice a week. Every year, in May or June, we apply to Island County for money, and part of the money I apply for is to fund the pool showers. The pool was a little reluctant to do it, but so far we haven’t had any problems. We buy punch cards and pay the full rate. We’re supporting our community and we are also taking care of our guests. When you talk about what makes people feel the best, being clean, being fed, and having clean clothes are very important. Sometimes when I talk about needs, I talk about the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. We’re down here at the bottom, trying to boost up these basic needs.

Mike: It seems that affordable housing in Island County is shrinking at an alarming rate.

Michele: There is a very limited amount of low income housing.

According to author Matthew Desmond, “…the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half their income on housing…Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head. This is among the most urgent and pressing issues facing America today…For decades, we’ve focused mainly on jobs, public assistance, parenting and mass incarceration….We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty.”  (Evicted  by Matthew Desmond, 2016.)

Mike: Tell me about your concerns for your guests surrounding the housing issues.

Michele: Any housing or health changes, a car emergency, can change everything. Let’s say you are going to lose where you live. One of our people who now has housing, there were three of them in an apartment, and one person said I can’t be here anymore, I can’t afford this; the other two couldn’t afford the apartment, so now they are spending time at SPIN. They both are working, they both get food stamps, but they are just holding on by a shoestring.

Mike: How does Island County classify the SPIN Café?

Michele: In my zoning quest I’m looking at how we define SPIN. Are we a restaurant? Are we a community center? What exactly are we? Just last Saturday I was looking at the zoning map. What is C3? What is C4? Understanding zoning is difficult.

Mike: What is your staffing like, and do you have help?

Michele: I do have help. The board of directors helps me. Last year I promoted Fe to Shelter Manager, so that I don’t have to be here all the time. She handles a lot of the day to day. I feel a bit disconnected because I like working with our guests, but I know that for the health of the SPIN Café, I need to focus more on the grant writing and the administrative work. We hire Robin Hertlein to write some small, community grants for us. I wrote the larger grants.

Mike: Was it daunting?

Michele: Very. I spent hours and hours on it. Once I submitted it to Washington State, there were two people there who helped revise it and asked questions. HUD’s got all this liberal language that you’re forced to use and make part of your policy if you want their money. That’s the way it is with any grant. These are the requirements; if you want it, this is what you have to do.

Mike: So you had to understand how to apply for the grant, even before working on it.

Michele: I really studied all of it because we fit some grants and we don’t fit others. It is a really good exercise for me as an Executive Director to jump through those hoops because they want specific numbers. We keep good metrics; we know how many guests we have each day, we know how many lunches we serve, how many showers, how many dinners, and so forth. Since October we started keeping track of individuals in the main room, we keep internal notes. We’ve served over a 140 different people in the last six months. And then break it down as to what we did for each of these individuals, be it treatment, housing, and referrals with Island County. This is what we do with our resources. Our resources are not just to feed and have a day center for people. Our resources are to help homeless people move forward with their lives and move in a direction that is out of homelessness.

Solutions to the housing issues will vary by location. What might work in a densely populated city may not be a solution in a semi-rural area like Island County. In his Epilogue, Matthew Desmond says: “What we need most is a housing program for the unlucky majority…A universal housing voucher program would carve a middle path between the landlord’s desire to make a living and the tenant’s desire, simply, to live…If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources.”

Numbers to consider: SPIN served 6,245 lunches in 2020, 7,753 in 2021, and 7,901 in 2022. Number of guests visiting SPIN in 2021: 4,614 and in 2022: 7,289.

Guest Focused

Mike: People often say, well, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Michele: Several of our guests are battling alcoholism. Many people have let their addiction go so far, they’ve lost everything. We support their sobriety, and several of them are willing to talk about it. One of the things that SPIN can do in a small community, is we can care for our folks. Only a small community like Whidbey Island can do this.

Mike: Marc Stroud, SPIN’s Board President, said that SPIN also helps people feel a sense of self-worth and belonging. Do you help with other needs people have, besides the basics we’ve talked about?

Michele: We call everybody by name. COVID was disastrous for homeless people and providers. You take an already isolated population that is stigmatized, and then isolate them more. During much of COVID, there were no water fountains, there were no public restrooms, no showers, no community services unless a county worker met you in the street. Your governor told you to go home. Homeless people had no home. You were unwelcome everywhere. Mentally ill people really felt it the most. The extended isolation helped drive people into the woods and encampments.

We want the general public to know that our meal service on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday is for anyone who needs a meal, not just our homeless population.  This is a home cooked meal served from 4 pm to 5 pm on those days. And we can also provide help and resources for those who need to sign up or change health insurance and other documents. We serve as a resource center.

Mike: Who are some of the groups that you’ve given presentations to?

Michele: Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, several churches. I love to give presentations. During the course of my day recently, a woman I know said: “We really don’t want SPIN here, downtown, but I’m really glad that you are running SPIN because you are providing a really good service.” It has taken two years for someone to go from saying we don’t want these people, to saying I’m really glad you’re working and helping them. It would be great if more people really understood how we are all working together, battling the drug problem, helping people get out of being homeless, and providing these services.

The Point in Time CountThe annual tally of people living homeless in America is conducted during the last 10 days of January. Most agree that it is a significant undercount, but gives a snapshot of how many are living rough. During the past decade the numbers have ranged from 550,000 to 650,000.

Point in Time Count data: Volunteers went out on February 24^th, 2022 in Island County and counted people who said they were living homeless. The North Whidbey count was 38. Covid interrupted the count in 2021 but between 2016 and 2020, the number fluctuated between a high of 69 in 2017 and a low of 41 in 2018.

Mike: Island County’s population is increasing. Does that raise some concerns for you about the growing number of people who need help?

Michele: Yes. When I wrote the HUD grant, I estimated that services would be needed, at some point in the future, for a 100 people per day. The cost of living is skyrocketing, wages are not increasing; that is a vicious circle. People are losing their housing, they are not being able to feed themselves, and drugs are so prevalent. Society is increasingly more complex. When you are 18 years old, there is no place you can go where you can get a job right out of high school, and a place to live, and a car, all by yourself. I think that people are just giving up on life. And I think that as a community, if we can band together to support the people that are less fortunate, we can make it meaningful.

Mike: It seems that many people have an inclination to help others, in some way.

Michele: At SPIN you can help in a multitude of ways. You can give leftover clothing, you can give money, you can give your time, you can serve coffee, and you can come to SPIN and just hang out. Volunteers are an important piece of our support. SPIN Café website: https://www.spincafeoh.org/

My thanks to Michele Hines for meeting with me to discuss SPIN Café, its mission, its community connections and the outreach that the staff, volunteers and supporters are providing to Island County residents. (Michele Hines – photo M. Diamanti).

 

For many years I have been meeting with a small group of friends to play cards. We come from a variety of backgrounds, outlooks, and political perspectives. We tease each other a lot, rarely talk politics, but we do discuss Island County issues and concerns that strike us as important. Topics like the homeless, the ferries, crime, traffic, visitors, the Navy, and local businesses. My objective in writing this blog, grew out of these conversations. I seek to get information from reliable sources for residents of Island County.

My first interview was with Rick Felici and Evan Tingstad. Sheriff Felici manages the Island County Sheriff’s office, and his staff responds to the calls that come in to his department via the Island County Emergency Services Communications Center (ICOM911). His office is often the first point of contact for issues related to public safety and they get referrals from community organizations and individuals as well.

My second interview is with Behavioral Health Manager/Clinical Supervisor, Kathryn Clancy. The behavioral health department in which she works is under the umbrella of Island County Human Services. She supervises staff who provide a variety of services for behavioral health issues. Her staff are often the next point of contact for people in need.

Behavioral health is a blanket term that includes mental health. The American Medical Association (AMA) website says that: “Behavioral health generally refers to mental health and substance use disorders, life stressors and crises, and stress-related physical symptoms. Behavioral health care refers to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of those conditions.”

We met on Friday, Feb. 24^th, 2023 for an interview.  (M. = Mike Diamanti, K = Kathryn Clancy.)

Initial Points of Contact

M. My understanding of things is that deputies and police officers often serve as the first point of contact with people who are having behavioral health issues. When I look at the Island County Behavioral Health-Outreach staff directory, I see people listed who work in Opioid Outreach, as Jail Counselors, Co-Responders and Recovery Navigator Case Managers. Could you elaborate a bit on this?

K. Well, to be frank, there’s an overlap with all our services. But we do have specific jobs that people are responsible for, and I thought what I could do is explain to you a bit about how we like to organize it in our mind and in our work. I think that will speak to what you just talked about in terms of the Sheriff’s office being the first contact for people with behavioral health disorders. In a crisis situation, deputies and officers are often the first responders, and for quite some time we’ve been working with them, even before we had some of our programs with them, in terms of taking referrals from them.

When they would come across someone who was having a mental health crisis or a substance use disorder crisis, and they weren’t in need of being arrested for a crime, we would reach out. We realized quickly that there’s a model out there in the world that works quite well. It’s been called different things, but essentially it’s having a mental health professional along with a law enforcement officer going to the scene.

M. When did Island County start that?

K. We got that going in 2019. Richard West was our first embedded mental health professional, but that program got interrupted by Covid. Once we were able to start up again, he had moved on to another position, but we realized that we really needed someone. He had been so busy with both the Oak Harbor Police Department and the Island County Sheriff’s Office.

M. You wanted to replace him?

K.  Yes, at a minimum. We felt we needed two people. We fund one position ourselves with the one-tenth of one per cent mental health sales tax funding. We asked for some additional funding from the North Sound Behavioral Health Administrative Services Organization. They are in charge of the crisis services for our five county region.

We realized that having two responders worked best in our county due to our geographical challenge, and because we wanted to be able to respond to referrals on our own, and not just with officers. Those were the two challenges. The way the program works now, is that the Co-Responders are housed at the Sheriff’s office and at the Oak Harbor Police Department. They are asked to go out with officers on calls when needed, and respond to additional referrals.

M. Do the responders go out on calls by themselves?

K. Yes, we realized it was difficult to be paired with an officer all day because the officer would have to respond to different calls and they might be needed elsewhere. So we decided that the Co-Responders would each have their own vehicles. They respond in three ways: a planned ride-along with officers/deputies, they go out on calls with officers/deputies when needed, and respond themselves to referrals.

M. And when you say needed, is that when needed by the officers or when needed via the referrals?

K. Both. The Co-Responders work for Human Services. But Amanda Borman-Ballard responds to whatever the Sheriff’s office needs, and Christina LeClaire responds to whatever the Oak Harbor police department needs. So, the way it looks on a daily basis, they may go out on two or three calls with officers, but they also respond to referrals. If an officer on nights or weekends gets a call that the Co-Responders could help with, the Co-Responders get a referral from those officers and they respond to those later – the next day or later in the day.

M. In a medical setting, the triage system is often used. (Triage refers to a preliminary assessment in order to determine the urgency of the person’s need for treatment.) Is that what you are describing?

K. Absolutely. Both of our Co-Responders have mental health and social work backgrounds, and they are both mental health professionals. They bring a lot of knowledge about these areas that currently does not exist in police departments. The Sheriff’s Office and the Oak Harbor police department get a lot of mental health and substance use disorder calls, so the expertise of the Co-Responders is really important.

Outreach vs. Walk-Ins

M. What I often hear from people is: “What are the police doing about the guy who is yelling and wandering around the Dairy Queen in Oak Harbor?”

K. Many of the folks that they are talking about have serious mental illness and substance use disorder. When we’re talking about that sort of complicated combination, it’s difficult unless you’ve built a relationship with that person to be able to help them. And that’s one of the things that I think our programs are uniquely designed to do. A lot of government entities and other counties in particular, are realizing that we need people doing outreach. That’s part of the problem with the current mental health system in our country. It’s built around coming in to the behavioral health office and getting multiple assessments. For people who are having challenges out in the street or with law enforcement, that model doesn’t work for them. There are too many barriers in the world right now for people to get the help they need.

M. We used to have walk-in clinics back in the 1970s and early 1980s. We’re not going back to that model. So how do people get help now?

K. The laws are very strict when it comes to involuntary detainment. And even when someone meets the criteria for that, the stay isn’t very long. It’s just a basic stabilization stay. Unless there’s a plan upon release, which quite often there isn’t, then they are back where they started almost instantly. Our goal is to try to work with people so we can gain some trust in understanding their situation and along with other community providers help them move towards a more permanent outcome.

The Co-Responder program, the Recovery Navigator program, and our other outreach programs help individuals work toward long-term, positive outcomes. We have regular case management outreach, we have counseling outreach, we have early childhood outreach where we go to people’s homes and help them with parenting. I think these services, meeting people where they are, are what helps create more of a long term solution.

Island County Programs

M. I printed out the “Behavioral Health Resource Guide for Island County, WA” and the quantity and variety of resources crammed onto two pages is impressive. https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Humanservices/Behavioral-Health/Documents/2022%20Behavioral%20Health%20Resource%20Brochure.pdf

K. Yes, let’s look at all our law enforcement behavioral health services; the Co-responders are one, the Recovery Navigator program is one -- Bill Larsen is the program manager for the Recovery Navigator program – you’re going to want to talk with him.

 

Jail Programs

K. We also have several jail programs. Essentially it’s three separate programs. We have a jail program where we have a mental health professional who works in the jail seeing individuals Monday through Friday, and that’s Laurel Brown. She does short-term and long-term counseling and daily risk assessments, and she works very closely with the medical staff if there’s any medication needs for people.

And then we have our RSAT Program, which is brand new, and stands for Residential Substance Abuse Treatment. It’s a program that has been around for awhile in prisons, primarily, because it’s up to a 90 day inpatient program. So just like somebody would go to inpatient treatment for 30, 60, 90 days at a substance use inpatient treatment facility, it’s the same in the jail. The people who are accepted into the program live in their own separate “pod”.

They have their own separate expectations, and they attend two substance use disorder treatment groups a day. Plus they get individual substance use disorder treatment and mental health treatment. We have a lot of things in that treatment program that essentially would be just like if somebody was in an inpatient treatment center.

M. It seems that treatment would bring up the issues and the pain that the person is going through, instead of just sitting in their cell.

K. Absolutely, and the third program we have is the jail transition program that we’ve had for many years, and that program has grown. It started out with a half-time position and it’s grown to a full-time position. Leif Haugen is the current jail transition coordinator. He works to assist someone transferring out of incarceration. The service is open to anybody who wants it, even if they are only there for a week. He can follow up for up to six months after they are released. He sets up whatever they might need for success.

A lot of times it’s housing, which you know is a challenge. But it’s also other things like mental health treatment, substance use disorder treatment. He can work with the folks in the jail to get the assessments they need, or other things that might be a barrier when they are released.

M. I see the name Chelcee Lindell mentioned as the Jail SUD Counselor.

K. She is now the Substance Use Disorder professional for the RSAT program. She does most of the groups.

M. She seems like a passionate advocate for helping people with recovery.

K. She is. She started out as a case manager for us and became very interested in working in the jail. She took over the jail transition position and then became a substance use disorder professional in the jail.

M. Can you speak a bit about Jose Briones, who is the Chief Jail Administrator?

K. He’s a great partner. We’ve always worked closely with the jail, and his real insistence is that people are not just warehoused, but that they have opportunities for programs. This has been really helpful and made it easier for us to move forward.

District Court Programs

M. What are some of the other outreach and connections with the public?

K. Jacob Force is one of our outreach case managers. He spends part of his time at District Court helping people get connected to different services if that was their primary reason for being in court. Why is this person appearing at court? Is it a substance use disorder? Is it a mental health thing? Is it because they are homeless? Is it a combination? If it’s any one of those social determinants of health, then Jacob will try to get them hooked up with services on the front end.

M. And District Court consists of both Island County District Court and Oak Harbor Municipal Court?

K. Correct. Both Judge Hawkins and Judge Costek are great advocates and supporters of having behavioral health services available in their courts. Jacob has also opened up the door with probation. He attends probation hearings where somebody has violated probation. Why did they violate their probation? Was it because they couldn’t get somewhere, or they couldn’t afford an interlock device for their car? What is the barrier? Jacob will try to help with those barriers. We’re trying to divert people out at various different points.

M. So Island County Behavioral Health personnel are trying to help people navigate a variety of systems that could help them?

K. Right. And in jail, once they are in the system, we are trying to get them out permanently. After they are out, we want to get them involved in the longer term services we have, like the jail transition, and our Co-Responders work on post-jail situations as do many of our longer term case managers who do a lot, especially with follow up.

The systems themselves, unfortunately, are so complex. I mean, it’s a challenge for our folks to navigate the systems, let alone anybody else who may have other challenges too, like homelessness. It’s very difficult to navigate the systems. And so we do a lot of navigating those systems for people.

Some folks have fallen through the cracks at various points and may end up back in the criminal justice system repeatedly. And that’s what we’re really trying to prevent. Also, people who have a variety of hospitalizations because of mental health issues. Permanent solutions are tough, but they are there. It just takes a lot of work.

Need for Preventive Services

M. Sheriff Rick Felici said that he believes that 75% of the people in the jail are there because of mental health related behaviors or chemical issues. Do you think that’s a fair assessment?

K. It probably is. It might even be higher than 75%. It’s not untrue that our jails in our country have become the quasi mental health centers, mental health hospitals. And instead of just saying, well that’s too bad, we have to work with what we have. We don’t have any mental health hospitals anymore. We really need to figure out what we can do in the future.

There are big ideas that would be helpful, that are very costly. There are also changes in laws that need to happen, as well as other things, to really solve the problem. Preventive services, in my mind, are key to implement. But we are likely to get less funding for preventive services than we do for any other services.

M. In Island County?

K. Just in general. We do have some prevention programs for early childhood and youth and family that we work on, but again, just not as much funding in those areas.

M. I hope to have another conversation with you about other areas, for instance, Veterans Services.

K. Yes, we can talk about those services. And housing. Housing is huge and our folks here know everything about housing in our county. The Housing Support Center is in our office, which is the place that people come to who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to get services.

But one of the things I want to mention is that we use a model to conceptualize our services. It’s called the Sequential Intercept Model (SIM). It really explains  the different intercepts for diversion, as I was mentioning. And many of the service providers around the country use this model. These are folks who work with both criminal justice and behavioral health. Intercepts for people can take place before anyone is ever arrested.

We need somebody with law enforcement, we need somebody at District Court, we need somebody at the jail, we need somebody for jail transition, we need somebody helping people get into treatment.

Hospital/Emergency Room Services

M. One of the things I hear from people is: Why do we have to have so many people in government involved? It used to be that the emergency room of a hospital was the point of entry.

K. That is still the case, but hospitals are different now. Hospitals as well as emergency rooms are complex entities and understaffed. Most services are funded by different and equally complex funding models.

M. And that’s a huge shift that people didn’t notice until it arrived.

K. Right

M. Can you speak to that?

K. We have a strong relationship with Debbie Ries, RN, who is the Emergency Department Manager at Whidbey Health. Our hospital has challenges that other hospitals don’t have. And partly because it’s a rural hospital, and understaffed. Reimbursement rates and preauthorization from insurance companies dictate medical services now, hospitals included. To complicate matters, you may have people coming to the emergency room with complex serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder as their primary problem, and they are in crisis.

It’s difficult with not enough staff and not enough social workers to manage it. Five years ago there were seven or eight social workers on staff at Whidbey Health. Now there’s one and a half. And the social workers they have are dealing with all the social work for patients, including discharge planning. They’re worn very thin.

M. One of the things Sheriff Felici said was that the emergency room often isn’t equipped or able to deal with the situation. I would imagine that the referrals the police officers and deputies and Co-Responders make are very important.

K. They are the staff who work with the hospital the most. Both Amanda and Christina are working with the hospital and hospital social workers constantly.  

Our work with the hospital and other community partners is all about our relationships with them. The relationships that we are building through our different programs are helpful and successful. We are working toward agreements between the hospital, the Designated Crisis Responders (DCR), law enforcement, and other community providers so that we have protocol that can be followed and can offer assistance when needed.

My thanks to Kathryn Clancy for spending time with me explaining some of the services Behavioral Health provides for those in Island County who need assistance.