Some readers may have a tough time understanding why conditions on Fulton Street have become such a point of discussion during recent City Council meetings.

We would say, in defense of Fulton Street residents who are increasingly fed up with the mess that Fulton Street has become, that it’s hard to understand the condition of some neighborhoods in Jamestown if you don’t experience them yourself.

We have a feeling some City Council members didn’t grasp the situation fully until they spent some time on Fulton Street themselves. Councilman Randy Daversa said he was “really taken aback” after talking to Fulton Street residents and seeing videos of some of the behavior neighborhood residents are asked to live with each day. Councilman Bill Reynolds said he was shocked by the conditions of some housing in the neighborhood while Jeff Russell, R-At Large, said the issues on Fulton Street are multi-faceted. All three councilmen are right, of course, but Russell’s point is the most interesting.

There is no single cause of the problems on Fulton Street. There is no single prescription that will cure the ills that people living on Fulton Street deal with every day.

Drug trafficking is a problem that brings with it undesirable activity and eventually violence. Mental health issues and addiction issues help create a powder keg of unpredictability that can make it difficult for neighbors to enjoy something as simple as a quiet night in their living room with a bowl of popcorn and a movie. Blighted houses just add to the issues because they attract further instability as people seek shelter – especially as the winter months approach.

An increased police presence – which is happening now on Fulton Street – will help. Increased Development Department intervention will help, too, in the form of infill housing development and a crackdown on code violations. We continue to think the city’s Nuisance Ordinance can play a role in helping particular problem properties. But, we will find ourselves running up against an old, familiar and largely intractable problem – lack of available treatment for those with mental health issues, a revolving door for those who commit nuisance crimes and immediately return to neighborhoods and the result of increasing poverty in many neighborhoods.

The problem is there is no easy fix for the mental health issues that many are dealing with these days, people’s behavior that isn’t serious enough to warrant serious charges but is frustrating to their neighbors, and the effects that poverty has on a neighborhood.

What’s happening on Fulton Street is a microcosm of conditions in many neighborhoods throughout Jamestown. Residents of those neighborhoods haven’t been a presence at City Council meetings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And that’s why conditions on Fulton Street are worth following regardless of where you live in Jamestown.