News Release from Jeremy Reynalds at Joy Junction
Tel: (505) 400-7145
With mayoral elections on the horizon, and the accompanying expense of campaign advertising, Joy Junction Founder and CEO Dr. Jeremy Reynalds is challenging candidates to use their platform to draw attention to the plight of Albuquerque’s increasing homeless population.
He said the mayoral candidates should investigate “cause advertising,” a practice where a business sponsors an advertisement for a charity or social need.
For example, Reynalds said, “Candidate A could put on a portion of his billboard, ‘I give 10 percent of my funds to help the homeless.’ If election laws prevent that, maybe a portion of their sign could read, ‘I encourage supporters to help Albuquerque’s homeless,’ or something akin to that.”
Reynalds said that with the country in a recession, he realizes politicians and local officials are in a difficult position.
He said, “We all realize there’s a dramatically increased need, but there seems to be an expectation among some people that local governments can just pull money out of a hat and fund local service agencies. There is no money to do that, so everyone has to be creative.”
Reynalds cited a recent survey commissioned by Joy Junction, in which just over 86% of 400 respondents polled said they believe various branches of government should be most responsible in addressing homelessness.
Clarifying that answer, CRC and Associates President Chris Cordova (whose company conducted the survey) said, “Respondents believed not that the government could do the best job of taking care of social needs, but that it was a governmental responsibility to ensure community and religious groups received the funding they needed to get the job done. In essence, community groups and/or religious organizations are best able to take care of homelessness, but it is the responsibility of the government to provide support to these groups.”
Tragically, Reynalds said, the difficulty of helping the homeless is sometimes made worse by the zoning difficulties experienced by some area homeless agencies.
He added, “I understand that you may not want the homeless as your neighbors-but where WOULD you like them? Sometimes when politicians do want to help, vocal constituents tie their hands. We need to recognize our community obligation as a whole to help the needy and homeless among us.”
