Publisher’s Note

The Pandemic, Gun Violence, Opioid Addiction and Poverty

The COVID-19 Pandemic is starting to wane as we as a community start to get back to normal daily activities. Normalcy is good, but for many, normalcy still retains some of the social ills that plague our lives: gun violence, opioid addiction and poverty. 

Gun violence is raging in the Roanoke Valley with multiple shootings within our neighborhoods, and as a community we are struggling to find answers.  As the shootings continue, we are working to develop strategies to help curb the gun violence. The Roanoke Gun Violence Commission received grants totaling $525,000 dollars to address curbing the gun violence in Roanoke, which has nearly doubled within a year.  

Opioid addiction is raging.  The opioid epidemic has flourished during the pandemic as solutions initially used to curb the growing number of deaths and hospitalizations from opioid drugs went by the wayside.  State and local governments have filed suits against opioid manufacturers and have taken them to court seeking financial restitution to address the addiction localities allege manufacturers created through deceptive marketing practices. A $28-billion agreement has been offered with funding slated for opioid preventative programs. I think this is a first bold step in addressing this ongoing issue and I hope most of the funding will go to treatment. 

Poverty has plagued Roanoke long before gun violence and opioids. The ongoing poverty issues have been addressed for years, yet our levels of poverty remain around 20 percent. During the pandemic, poverty among families and children increased exponentially.  Jobs were lost especially in the restaurant industry creating despair and anguish and has caused gun violence and opioid and other drug addictions to rise.  Creating job training that fits the needs of our employers is vital as we continue efforts to lower poverty.  As a community, we must be more aggressive in marketing the job training opportunities and provide additional paid internships and apprenticeship programs.  

We must remain diligent in our efforts as we continue to work to solve the social ills in our community.  Some ideas will work, and some will fail, but we must have faith and the passion to see them through. Together, we can do it.