The Forgotten

The Forgotten

The city of Naples is a beautiful city in Collier County, Florida. A place I moved to when I was six and grew up there until I was almost twenty one. When I moved there it was just the small town of Naples on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It eventually became one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. All the old people moved in with there money and tried to make it there paradise. The county and city seem to only tailor to the rich old people. The problem was everyone didn’t have money and there were more then just seniors around. Because of the county and local government only tailoring to the wealthy older crowd a lot of problems formed.

One, There is nothing for kids or teens to do. There was a small amount of things to do when I was a kid, and even some of those places have been shut down or changed. The only thing they keep building for kids is schools. So what are kids specifically teenagers going to do when going to the Beach, Mall or the Movies gets old? It causes them to get board and turn to drugs, crime and other things that are nation wide problems. In Collier County, approximately 85% of all juvenile criminal cases are substance abuse related. The use of inhalants among Collier County middle school students nearly doubled from 12 percent in 2002 to 21 percent in 2004. Every third day in 2005, a Collier County juvenile went to the hospital because of a drug or alcohol overdose. (WWW.DRUGFREECOLLIER.ORG, NP)They said in a recent article that the average kid in collier county is introduced to drugs at about 12 years old (MSNBC, 2006). There where 2,100 teen arrests to 13,400 total arrests in the area in 2001(FDLE, pp 11, 2001). This number is pretty significant if you think about the size of this age group. In Collier County, deaths due solely to drug toxicity increased 76% between 1998 and 2005(www.drugfreecollier.org, n.p.).What are they doing to change this? I wasn’t able to find anything in writing that said they where. I have lost too many friends to drug overdoses and to correctional facilities in my time in Naples. The problem could be fixed, But will it? My guess is probably not because it is not what the people with the power really want. The local Collier County Sheriffs office is kind of corrupt if you ask me. They really have the policy of just let the courts sort it out. Money and effort would be better spent on prevention and education but Collier County seems like the prefer rehabilitation or incarceration.

Another problem it is so hard to find affordable living. This becomes a huge problem because of the service needed during the season in Collier County, which is estimated to almost double from about 251,377 to 441,915 at the peak of season (Collier County Government, n.p.). It doesn’t help either that they have begun to remodel almost every cheap apartment complex into 150,000 thousand dollar or more condos. Even when you can find something to rent the average 10.50 an hour wage will not pay the 1,200 dollar monthly rent. The people that tend to seasonal home owners and visitors are not the only ones affected.