Now here’s a good idea that has no practical use: Open a center in Aurora dedicated to helping those having problems getting over the horror of the Century 16 theater shootings last summer.
City lawmakers are proposing that just such a center be set up inside an abandoned city library in northwest Aurora. It would cost about $35,000 to open.
While good intentions and some helpful ideas are clearly the impetus for such a center, we don’t see anyone looking for it and have serious doubts anyone would use it. There are certainly unmet needs for some Aurora residents affected by the shooting, but they don’t point to the creation of a center to address them.
Reporter Sara Castellanos in this edition of the Aurora Sentinel wrote that the proposed “resiliency center” would offer individual and group counseling, art and music therapy programs, physical activity programs and possibly psychiatric medical care — and it would be open to all Aurora residents who have experienced any kind of trauma.
In talking with some of the victims directly and indirectly affected by the shooting, none shows any interest in seeking out a center like this. They, and others, agree, however, that now or in the future they may want to seek out psychiatric help to deal with the recovery process. But Aurora Mental Health already offers easy ways to access such help, especially for those who have no alternative. Art therapy, music therapy and group therapy doesn’t need a new facility, it just needs a schedule.
A better use of $35,000 would be to ensure that anyone without other resources be able to get the mental-health services they want or need, using the excellent programs and facilities already in place. As to the very serious problems for families of slain victims and victims critically injured physically or psychologically during the attack, such a center doesn’t even begin to deal with their problems.
Finally, the very neighborhood where this center is proposed has an aching need for the library wrongly shuttered by city officials just a couple of years ago. It would be an insult to injury to spend city money on creating a center that no one needs or uses while there’s such a serious need for the library and computer access no long available to nearby residents.
Like so many Aurora residents, city officials clearly feel the need to do something in regards to the terror inflicted by James Holmes last year. But this center isn’t what Aurora is asking for, nor is it what the community needs.
If city lawmakers are looking at a way to help those affected by the July 20 horror at the Century 16 theater, and a way to prevent more terrorism, they should work to increase spending on all mental health programs and educate the public on when to force dangerously ill people to seek help and hospitalization.
That doesn’t take a center; it takes commitment.
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