The Daily Agenda: Martin aims to 'get rid of the cracks'

Jake Martin says too many people who need help fall through the cracks ... That's why he's running for Pima County supervisor ... Pima Dems flub Facebook post.

Jake Martin may be younger than most candidates, but he says he’s already got a solid track record on the issues that count the most.

He’s 21 years old and running for Pima County supervisor in District 1. He’s also the CEO of a nonprofit he founded and deals first-hand with thorny issues like homelessness, sexual assault, fentanyl addiction, and even the red tape that stymies business growth.

Over the past few months, he collected enough signatures to get on the ballot to challenge incumbent Supervisor Rex Scott in the July 30 Democratic primary. He sat down with the Tucson Agenda this week to talk about why he’s running, his main issues, and what he’d do about them if elected.

In his view, the county needs somebody on the board of supervisors “who’s in the trenches,” like he is with his nonprofit Survivor Shield, which helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“Really what inspired me to run was staring the issues of this community head-on every day when I come into work,” he said.

Martin is a junior at the University of Arizona and studies Human Development and Family Science, which he describes as a “more scientific-based approach to social work.“ He’s lived in Tucson since the seventh grade and went to Catalina Foothills High School.

Soon after he founded Survivor Shield three years ago, he was looking for ways to help people in crisis pay their bills, stay housed, and afford childcare. Within a few months, “it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen governmentally,” he said.

So he and his staff decided to run the program through their nonprofit. That’s the pattern he’s seen over and over as they tackled issues like homelessness and the fentanyl crisis.

“We’ve seen a lot of places where the government isn’t doing what they need to be doing,” he said.

In Martin’s view, voters can stick with the status quo, which includes skyrocketing opioid deaths, “terrible” public transportation, and a lack of pedestrian infrastructure.

Scott and the other supervisors didn’t cause those problems, but they have “not done enough” to address them, he says.

Or voters can choose someone who has “challenged” the status quo and “proven time and time again, not only their commitment to the community, but their ability to administer services within it.”

Last year, he said his nonprofit kept 78 people housed, clothed, and fed. This year, they’re expecting to do the same for 300 people.

One of Martin’s main goals as supervisor would be to establish a family advocacy center and build government support for it. The center would be “one building in which social service nonprofits, governmental social service, health care, law enforcement, and attorneys all sit.” That way, people in crisis can come to a single location for all the services they need and avoid falling through the cracks.

“If you want to end homelessness, you need to get rid of those cracks,” he said. “If you want to end things like fentanyl addiction, things like that, you’ve got to get rid of those cracks.”

When it comes to the fentanyl crisis, he wants to take a “proven, crisis intervention, trauma-informed approach.” In his experience, most of the people he sees using fentanyl got hooked on it once they were already living on the streets.

“So if we can prevent people getting on the streets in the first place, then we can prevent the growth of fentanyl,” he said.

He’d also advocate for overdose prevention centers where people can use fentanyl safely, as a way to combat opioid-related deaths.

As a business owner himself, he can commiserate with those who deal with “atrocious bureaucracy and red tape.” He gave the example of a barber shop owner he knows who had to wait three months to get a permit to fix a broken window. Clearing that up is “something that I agree with a lot of my Republican colleagues and friends on.”

He recognizes that sometimes it’s easier to point at problems when you’re on the outside, while it gets harder when you’re actually in office. But he says if he’s elected he’ll make sure the county’s policies are concise, transparent, and accountable, just like he’s been doing at his nonprofit for the past three years.

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This story was supported by the Local News Initiative of Southern Arizona, a fund of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.

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