Des Moines Register. April 4, 2018
Can government work in Iowa? Yes it can. The Legislature offers an example.
Bipartisan legislation designed to help fill gaps in system, but lawmakers must remain dedicated going forward for it to truly succeed.
The Iowa Legislature is regularly a dysfunctional, polarized disappointment. But every once in a while lawmakers listen to experts, pay attention to public opinion and do something right.
This legislative session that something is House File 2456, signed last week by Gov. Kim Reynolds.
The new law is intended to fill gaps in Iowa’s mental health system. Among its most significant provisions is directing the development of six access centers in the state. A December report from a work group of mental health stakeholders provides an example of how such centers can help make a difference for Iowans.
The report describes Naomi, a suicidal woman in her late 20s. Her behavior prompts her boyfriend to call police, but when they arrive, she insists she is fine. Officers question her and learn she struggles with alcohol, has previously attempted suicide, takes psychiatric medication and is estranged from her family.
The police build a rapport with Naomi, who ultimately agrees to allow them to take her to the hospital. Staffers there determine she does not need to be admitted, but she cannot safely return home. The physician obtains a court commitment to an access center, where she is watched closely, provided preliminary treatment and connected with support services.
“In two days she is heading home with follow-up appointments and someone monitoring to make sure she stays engaged in treatment,” according to the example from the work group.
Successful mental health treatment relies on following up, keeping patients engaged and monitoring medication to try to prevent a crisis. Iowans with mentally ill loved ones have plenty of experience dealing with an immediate crisis. They have called police. They have had emergency mental health teams in their homes. They have spent hours in hospitals before being sent home with little help and no idea what to do next.
The new centers could provide immediate help as well as a comprehensive plan for going forward.
Of course the facilities must operate based on evidence-based methods and practices. They must be staffed with good employees. They must be adequately funded. The success of this mental health reform requires more work from leaders.
Many services, including crisis care, rely on payment from Medicaid. This is yet another reason politicians should stop trying to limit access to this insurance or undermine Obamacare, which expanded Medicaid to thousands of previously uninsured Iowans.
Jerry Foxhoven, director of the Iowa Department of Human Services, should ensure for-profit companies contracted to administer Medicaid actually pay for mental health services. Better yet, he should advocate to end the disastrous shift to privatization and return Medicaid to state management. The millions of public dollars being wasted on the companies’ administrative costs could be used to pay for actual care.
Also, counties may need to generate revenue to help fund services.
There is more to do, but the significance of lawmakers coming together to pass the bill should not be underestimated, said Peggy Huppert, executive director of the Iowa chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Lawmakers rightly listened to a work group of 22 people, including Huppert, who spent months debating and crafting reform.
“I know people can’t wrap their heads around a significant bill passing unanimously, but it’s what happened,” she wrote in an email. “I don’t think it’s because everyone loved it or even understood it. But they got the message that it would be very bad (and politically stupid) to vote against it.”
Another bill, Senate File 2113, which Reynolds also signed, calls for the State Board of Education to require school districts to adopt protocols for suicide prevention and intervention after a suicide.
“Do these bills fix everything? Of course not,” Huppert said. “Will there be challenges with funding and implementation? Most assuredly. But don’t let anyone tell you they’re not significant. Every elected official said mental health is important and things must change.”
That is what progress looks like.
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Quad-City Times. April 6, 2018
Iowa needs migrants
Iowa has a population problem. And yet, this week, Gov. Kim Reynolds readied to sign legislation that explicitly warns migrants from settling here.
Incessantly, Iowans are inundated with a false narrative about a mythical “skills gap.” Its workers aren’t ready for the job market, state officials say. Bleed the four-year state universities dry so Iowa can pump another $18 million into vocational training, they decided this week.
But there is no meaningful skill gap in Iowa, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Throughout the Midwest - where public universities are being transformed into worker preparation centers - manufacturers aren’t short on applicants because of a lack of training, said the conservative newspaper. In fact, Iowa’s community colleges are struggling to keep vocational classes filled.
Iowa just doesn’t have the people.
Unemployment rates throughout the region are the lowest in decades, according to federal data. So-called “full employment” means a given economy has reached its capacity. And Iowa might be perhaps the strongest example of the worker shortage.
Iowa’s population has remained remarkably stable for decades. It was a state of roughly three million in 1970, reported the U.S. Census. It was a state of roughly three million in 2010. It’s likely to be a state of roughly three million in 2020, say federal forecasts. In contrast, Illinois gained almost two million residents between 1970 and 2010. ’
Iowa simply doesn’t grow. And it’s that lack of population growth - reproductive consistency almost unheard of anywhere else in the U.S. - that poses the greatest challenge to the Hawkeye State’s economy.
Cue Iowa Legislature to do something nonsensical.
This week, lawmakers adopted the not-so-lovingly dubbed “sanctuary cities” bill, legislation in search of a problem. It’s nothing but a brash bit of election-year politicking that would damage relations between local police and the communities they serve. But making Iowa’s communities less safe isn’t the only problem here.
Frankly, the legislation is downright counterproductive in a state that claims to be “open for business.” It only makes sense within a national political framework where brown migrants are scapegoated and denegrated with disturbing regularity.
The facts surrounding Iowa’s population problem are neither new nor revolutionary. Then-Gov. Tom Vilsack two decades came under heavy fire for proposing migrant outreach programs. Vilsack was operating from the very same data set that Iowa faces today.
The only significant change in Iowa’s demographic constitution is found in its substantial growth in its cities. While the overall population has remained essentially steady, urban centers - particularly Des Moines - continually comprise a bigger slice of the state’s stagnant overall population.
It’s Iowa’s small towns that are decaying. And it’s those very same communities about which state lawmakers claim to care. And yet, they adopt racially targeted policies that make stemming the rural out-migration even less likely.
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Sioux City Journal. April 5, 2018
Board should OK policy on names in schools
As a general rule, is anything wrong with honoring an individual by naming part of a public school building for him or her in exchange for money?
In our view, no.
The Board of Education is considering a request by the Sioux City Public Schools Foundation to get behind the idea of naming specific areas of schools, such as gymnasiums and auditoriums, in return for donations. The foundation believes a step like this would be valuable in its efforts to raise funds for support of local public schools. We agree.
If the request is supported by the board, the policy revision would read, in part: “The Board may enter into an agreement with any person or entity regarding the naming rights to a District facility in exchange for a substantial donation or other contribution to the District or the Sioux City Public Schools Foundation.”
We urge the board to embrace this request to make clear in district policy the fact naming rights in exchange for donations is acceptable, subject to whatever conditions the board deems appropriate.
The board should establish criteria for these agreements and retain the final say on such proposals. Every name may not be acceptable for display inside a school, no matter how much money is offered.
In our view, the Public Schools Foundation request represents a reasonable extension of a common method of honoring someone recognized and used across the country in a variety of places and forms.
If, say, a local family wishes to honor a late member for lifetime support of public education in this fashion by making a significant donation to Sioux City’s public schools, we see nothing but positives resulting from approval of the request by the school board.
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Dubuque Telegraph Herald. April 6, 2018
Housing initiative needed and overdue
Two of Dubuque’s priorities, improving the quality and quantity of affordable housing and rejuvenating the North End, might have appeared to be at odds in light of a decision this week by the City Council.
However, for the long term, it’s a good move.
The council on Monday green-lighted a program to purchase, renovate and resell up to 50 residential properties in the city’s low-income neighborhoods, including the North End. Under an agreement with True North Community Development Corp., the initiative will involve a public investment of $1.5 million over seven years. The money is included in the annual budget that the council recently OK’d.
The city plans to acquire and rehab about 120 rental properties into single-family homes, which it would then sell to low-income buyers. Under the qualification guidelines, for a family of four, for example, the maximum income level would be $53,100 a year. The city will offer buyers no-interest loans of up to $25,000 toward acquisitions costs. The renovated homes would have to stay single-family dwellings for at least 21 years.
This program aligns with Greater Dubuque Development Corp.’s ambitious campaign to help transform North End and downtown areas.
As Mayor Roy Buol said, “This will go a long way to stabilize our at-risk neighborhoods and create an environment where everyone can be proud of where they live regardless of their income or stead in the community.” It addresses several issues on the community’s list of priorities.
It’s an excellent initiative to bolster struggling sections of town and to improve housing options for people needing a firmer footing in the community. Still, Monday’s council decision was not unanimous. The dissenter in the 6-1 vote was Jake Rios, who represents Ward 4, where much of the program will take place.
He explained that he’s concerned about gentrification. That is the term for the situation where renovation and construction in a down-and-out urban area attracts middle-class or rich residents and makes the neighborhood unaffordable for the lower-income people who lived there. In the short term, residents of the Dubuque properties, primarily multi-family rental structures, would be displaced due to renovation work.
“I’m afraid that in the immediate future we’re going to end up having people pushed out prematurely and . move into housing that’s subpar that we haven’t gotten to yet,” Rios said.
It’s an understandable concern. However, this program includes some safeguards against gentrification. It is targeting the rental properties in the worst condition and limiting sales of the renovated homes to lower-income buyers. You would not see (and have not seen) those considerations if the situation were left entirely to the private sector.
Government involvement in the True North initiative is better than sitting back and watching substandard housing continue to deteriorate, dragging down the value of neighboring properties with it. Wait any longer, and you are likely to see the approach of private developers, who, unlike the city, would not schedule their projects according to property quality or give priority to low-income buyers or tenants. Now that would pretty much guarantee the gentrification that Rios (and others) wish to avoid.
Granted, the city program doesn’t mean gentrification is impossible. If the public initiative takes hold, it will make the area more attractive to private investment in other properties. But what choice does the community have? Continuing to be a spectator to the deterioration of these neighborhoods can be an option no longer.
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