Thank you to the Tulalip Tribes for the commitment to the community shown by buying 30 acres of land in 2011 and investing a serious amount of money in the establishment of a group of behavioral health facilities (“Neighbors, advocates at odds over mental center near Stanwood,” The Herald, Oct. 16).
How appropriate to plow revenue from the Tulalip properties just down the highway that includes big box stores, the hotel and casino into helping create community-centered healing. This is contributing to the larger community in a way we should all be inspired by. This points the way to a more healed future society as the perception that we are all isolated individuals, even though we are a population of 330 million people, gives way to a more sophisticated sense of how interdependent we are.
Mental health care reveals the issue we have had for many generations. Should we cast out these people so that they go down the toad to another community like Seattle? Punish them in large “asylums”? Or take some responsibility for forging a new path, one that promises healing?
Can a community really be considered wholly sane if we reject people because they have needs? The answer is in the Tulalips proposed healing center. It is the sane alternative.
Stuart Heady
Camano Island
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