A Library in a War Zone

I recently had the privilege of going to the "International District" Library to get a copy of Alice in Wonderland for my daughter to read for school. (I had placed a hold on it to pick up at another library, but didn't think it would be ready for at least a week or more. It was ready the day after I went to the library. Oh well.)

This library was really really nice. It was clean, well lit, organized, and the grounds were well maintained and landscaped. The parking lot was nice. Even the Recycle and Trash bins outside were nice. It had a cool Little Free Library outside. It was a really neat library. 

However...

If you live in ABQ you know that the "International District" is some clever marketing to try and rebrand the "War Zone," an area of danger and filth and poverty and crime, and if you went outside of the library grounds, that's exactly what you found. It was even spilling onto the library property, with the really nice landscaping and benches being taken over by homeless and carts full of who knows what sitting by the front doors. 

You see, the streets around this area on Central are horrible. They are full of filth and crime and homeless and drugs, and as you continue down Central it continues, with buildings boarded up or windows shattered and charred tree branches lying on the ground from where someone set a fire beneath it. 

When you get to Nob Hill and the University area it improves a good deal, but then when you get to downtown it gets even worse. As I drove along 1st street, under I-40 the sidewalks could not be seen because of the number of tents and tarps and sleeping bags and carts and trash. I had to get out of my lane and drive in the oncoming traffic lane due to people meandering and wandering in the middle of the road. 

Our city has a problem, and something needs to be done to fix this. Circumstantially, it seems that the areas in which there are businesses, and not boarded up and burned out buildings, are areas that are able to curb the problem some, but it's just expanding and more and more of the city is beginning to look like a "War Zone." 

So, how do we change this? How do we fix it? It is neither kind, loving, nor compassionate to people to let them wallow in the existence that I observed, whether that existence is of their own doing or not, and it is not kind, loving, nor compassionate to let our children grow up in a city like this. We can't just rebrand it or paint over it either. The "International District" Library is really nice, but it won't be for long unless we address the underlying problems and start to fix them instead of just slapping on a layer of paint...