To the Editor:

Savings and Loan Collapse. The year 1982 marked the beginning of supply side economics in which deregulation and tax cuts were viewed as the solution to stimulating corporate growth.

What started off as a clever idea to address recidivism has grown into something more — a community-driven response to concerning and costly social ills like homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse disorder. 

It’s tough for a person to get back up on their feet, no matter how well they may have done in the past. Such was the case for Jeremiah Moynihan, a Florida man who after living in Western North Carolina for the last several years found himself sick and homeless with nowhere to turn. 

On May 24, 2023, Canton Mayor Pro Tem Gail Mull sat on a bench in Sorrels Street Park, waiting to hear the shrill shriek of the steam whistle at Pactiv Evergreen’s century-old paper mill at the heart of town blow for the last time. 

A substantial grant from the U.S. Department of Labor has already provided help for more than 50 dislocated workers in Western North Carolina, but Southwestern Commission Workforce Development Director David Garrett wants to get the word out that they’re looking to help a whole lot more. 

It’s the kind of street – lined with modest, well-kept houses flying U.S. flags – where neighborhood children haphazardly cast their bicycles in piles on a playmate’s lawn to tear off and play in the woods or on a backyard Slip ‘N Slide.

Southwestern Community College Director of Career Services Michael Despeaux has been holding bricks-and-mortar job fairs for almost 20 years, but on Friday, April 24, he’ll hold his very first “virtual job fair” to connect employers and job seekers online. 

While not yet a humanitarian tragedy in terms of lives lost, the Coronavirus Pandemic has quickly become an economic tragedy in terms of livelihoods lost. Intuitively, local and statewide “stay home” orders have resulted in large-scale unemployment, but counterintuitively, there are still plenty of places putting out the proverbial  “now hiring” signs all across Western North Carolina. 

Workers affected by layoffs associated with the Coronavirus Pandemic are still reporting major problems with North Carolina’s unemployment benefit system almost four weeks after North Carolina’s hospitality industry was effectively shuttered by executive order.

A Haywood County woman has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges for filing bogus unemployment claims on behalf of unsuspecting victims, a scam that bilked the government for more than $29,000 in fake unemployment benefits over a two-year period.