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PHX Reporter

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Austin VanDerHeyden: There are crimes 'we wouldn't think would be happening in America and they're happening on our doorstep here in Phoenix'

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Austin VanDerHeyden, the Municipal Affairs Liaison at The Goldwater Institute, had this exchange with host Leyla Gulen on the Grand Canyon Times Podcast: 

Austin VanDerHeyden: No doubt homelessness has exploded in many cities, but Phoenix has just been hit, terribly hard. And so that's really what happened. The zone, like I said, about a thousand individuals, there's the Central Arizona Shelter Services right there  and so, that's kind of where all of this happened. So, little over two years ago, there was a group of business owners who decided to bring a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix for what they said, creating and maintaining a public nuisance and a lot of the issues that were happening down there were not just individuals, but the crimes that were committed down there. There are numerous reports of murders. There was a man found burned to death in a dumpster. There's a 20 to 24 week old fetus found in the middle of the road. Things that really, we wouldn't think would be happening in America and they're happening on our doorstep here in Phoenix. And I'm coming to you from the Goldwater office here, which is just a few minutes away from the zone. So we've really seen this firsthand as well. 

You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Established in 1998 and based in Phoenix, The Goldwater Institute is a nonprofit public policy research and litigation organization. It promotes free-market principles and limited government. The Institute conducts research, provides policy recommendations, and engages in litigation to protect individual rights and state sovereignty. It was named after U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. The Institute focuses on various policy areas, including education, healthcare, and property rights.


FULL, RAW TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE:

Leyla Gulen: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Grand Canyon Times Podcast. I'm your host, Laila Ghulen. In this episode, we welcome our guest, Austin Vanderheyden. Austin is the Municipal Affairs Liaison for the Goldwater Institute, helping municipalities across Arizona find free market solutions and works with city councils, county officials, and school boards to promote a limited government.

And it sounds like bureaucracy is what's hampering Arizona from finding a solution to its out of control homeless problem. But the Goldwater Institute says it has a solution that will be on the November ballot. Austin, welcome.

Austin Van Der Hayden: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah. And what brings us here is Arizona's homeless crisis.

And we hear a lot about the subject as it pertains to places like New York, Los Angeles, Seattle. But Arizona has one of the worst trends when it comes to homelessness. Can you first paint us a picture of what we're talking about? [00:01:00] 

Austin Van Der Hayden: Absolutely. So up until recently, there was the zone in Phoenix, a couple blocks away from the state capital.

There was a thousand homeless individuals in a small, few block radius. It was the largest homeless encampment in that small of an area anywhere in the country. So no doubt homelessness has exploded in many cities, but Phoenix has just been hit terribly hard. And so that's really what happened. The zone, like I said, about a thousand individuals, there's the central Arizona shelter services right there.

And so that's kind of where all of this happened. And so little over two years ago, There was a group of business owners who decided to bring a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix for what they said, creating and maintaining a public nuisance. And a lot of the issues that were happening down there were not just individuals, but the crimes that were committed down there.

There are numerous reports of murders. There was a man [00:02:00] found burned to death in a dumpster. There was a 20 to 24 week old fetus found in the middle of the road. Things that really we wouldn't think would be happening in America, and they're happening on our doorstep here in Phoenix, and I'm coming to you from the Goldwater office here, which is just a few minutes away from the zone, so we've really seen this firsthand as well.

But it's not just Phoenix, it's Tucson. Really, we've seen this spread. All throughout the state, uh, and it's just gotten to a point where it's like you said, it's pretty out of control.

Leyla Gulen: I mean, when you mention a fetus being found in the middle of a road, it turns your stomach. It breaks your heart to hear something like that.

I mean, certainly with homelessness, you associate a certain level of morbidity, but when you're talking about a fetus, I mean, that must strike the Arizona population, particularly Maricopa County. Yeah. As something truly astounding [00:03:00] and disturbing.

Austin Van Der Hayden: It definitely is. It's again, it's something that, that you would not anticipate happening in this country.

And I also want to point out, I mean, we're, we're in Phoenix here. This is, it's not 70 degrees every day. And we're getting to that point, 110 today. And it's not right for these individuals who are on the streets to be out in this type of condition. And so. I think last year we saw heat related deaths reach about 750 people when it comes to the homeless population alone, and it's really It's not the, it's not the right situation for these individuals to be in either on the streets.

It's dangerous. It's just, yeah, something needs to be done. And the city has really been scrambling for answers for the last couple of years when it comes to addressing this issue.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah, it sounds like, and it sounds like they've been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the problem with really no result.

And I want to talk about that in just a moment, but just so we can. Uh, sort of paint that picture [00:04:00] further for our listenership as far as the population's concerned in terms of homelessness, when you compare it to some of the other cities that I had mentioned before, New York City being one with 88, 000 homeless people during the year 2023, same year for Los Angeles County, 71, 000, Seattle, 14, 000, then you come down to Phoenix, Mesa and Maricopa County at 9,600 homeless people reported for 2023.

I mean, those, it's a much smaller city compared to these larger metropolises, but that number is, is terrible.

Austin Van Der Hayden: Oh, for sure it is. And one is too many. And you look at, I think, the most alarming stat here with that, with those numbers. You look from 2018 to 2023. It was an increase from 6, 298 people to just shy of 9, 650 in 2023, which is a 92 [00:05:00] percent increase over a five year stretch.

And so you've really seen these numbers just completely skyrocket across the valley. It's not just Phoenix. Everybody's feeling the effects of this issue. I've mentioned Tucson, their numbers are up a 60 percent between 2018 to 2023. So, so it's grown a ton. And I think that's what makes Phoenix so unique is the rapid growth.

That we've seen in our homeless population

Leyla Gulen: and why, why are we seeing such a rapid growth? I'm originally from California, Los Angeles. They're drawn to the beaches. You go to Santa Monica and they're everywhere and they always have been there. I just as far back as I can possibly remember from my childhood.

There's always been an established homeless population there. But why Phoenix? Why are we seeing Phoenix as this landing spot for so many homeless people?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Sure. So I think the West Coast in general has seen [00:06:00] numbers that are unparalleled to the other parts of the country, specifically because of a 2018 Ninth Circuit ruling called Martin v.

Boise, where Essentially, they said in the ninth circuit, you cannot criminalize homelessness if there's not adequate shelter space for these individuals to seek. And so that's what the cities have been falling back on. But what they've done is they've taken it a step further really and said, we're not going to enforce any laws when it comes to homeless individuals, whether it's.

murder, theft, burglary, assault, public urination and defecation, illicit drug use, things like that. And so when you see things like them in the lawsuit that I mentioned earlier, the Goldwater Institute was involved in that lawsuit. Police officers testified that they were told not to enforce the law in the zone.

They were told not to go down and take care of the issue. And so you've seen things like that. You've also seen situations where individuals are offered shelter beds and they refuse to take it. They don't want to [00:07:00] take it. In many situations, these individuals are dealing with substance abuse issues, mental health issues, and they're allowed to continue that lifestyle on the streets.

But if they go into. Sometimes there's requirements to be sober. They can't bring their pets. They can't bring their possessions. There's all these sorts of things. And so when they're allowed to stay on the streets, they're kind of incentivized to stay on the streets in that aspect. When this type of behavior is allowed to continue.

And so I think that, Phoenix has been unique from that perspective, but really the Ninth Circuit and the West Coast in general has seen the largest increase compared to, to a lot of the rest of the country.

Leyla Gulen: I mean, to stay in a shelter, for instance, those shelters can be very dangerous places. These are not just quiet, uh, A roof over your head, a bed, and a pillow to sleep on, there's rampant violence happening within those shelters.

So if you can find a corner somewhere around a building or in a park, sometimes [00:08:00] they say that feels like a safer option. But I'm glad you brought up the fact that these homeless people, these individuals, these are not just individuals who are down and out, hit a patch of bad luck, just they don't have anyone to turn to.

And their homelessness will be temporary. These are people who have serious mental issues. They have serious drug abuse issues and the risk to the public health, as you mentioned, public defecation, urination, disease, drug abuse, violent behavior. These are all things that present a clear and present danger.

So this is not new. This didn't just come across. Last week, this has been an issue for years now. So why the dragging of the feet? Why can there not be a solution already presented to start fixing things?

Austin Van Der Hayden: I think if you were to ask the city, I think that they would [00:09:00] say that their hands are tied by the courts.

I think that that's kind of what you would hear from them. One thing that I like to point out too is, aside from homelessness, Arizona's dealing with a huge housing shortage. I mean, the Arizona State University just put out a report a couple weeks ago saying we're 277, 000 homes short. And so when you're dealing with a number that high, it's hard to find homes for everyday people here.

And that's really, I think, what's exacerbated the issue even more is that it's hard enough to find housing And then when you get to that point of being homeless, we need all types of housing. And I think that's not helping it from that perspective either. But the city has also poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this issue.

And so, to me, it seems like there's really no excuse. Or the city to have to at least not have made any sort of dent in this problem because while they're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into this issue, again, we've seen that number rise 92%. And so [00:10:00] if spending is not going to get it done, maybe we need to start looking at other avenues and the city really hasn't pivoted from that.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah, to live. To the tune of 180 million. However, that number is actually dwarfed by what you say is a potential 250 million in funds. If you take those other funds into account, where is this money coming from and where is it going?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Well, that's honestly what we were, we were trying to do with this report here.

I mean, we've been working on this report for a better part of a year. We've pulled statistics and numbers from things like city and other publicly available records, city contracts, council ordinances, adopted budgets, things like that. So we've really tried to put a comb through a lot of these statistics and see where the money's coming and going.

A lot of it. is coming from COVID funding, the federal, the ARPA funding. And that's where a lot of this money has come from. We've looked at a bunch of different organizations where the money's going to one of the key takeaways. Yes, they've allocated 180 [00:11:00] plus million dollars, but the city can only allocate.

or account for 47. 6 million in that funding. So there's a minimum of about 140 million that we just don't know where it is. We don't know where it's going. That's an

Leyla Gulen: enormous discrepancy.

Austin Van Der Hayden: It's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. And I mean, you've seen, we did a kind of an outline of some of the contracts that they're giving out.

So Community Bridges 30 million. In funds to address this issue, we've gone down Brycon, they're doing shelter space in general contracting, St. Vincent de Paul, TAS, like I mentioned, which is in the zone, they're all receiving north of nine and a half million dollars a piece. And so, we've seen a lot of this.

The other thing, the Office of Homeless Solutions, we did a public records request for them, and one of the main asks was, what is your budget? I would think that's something that should be readily available, uh, pretty quick. It took almost a year for us to get an answer from them. And so it, it just, it seems to me like there's a very [00:12:00] huge lack of transparency.

I'll also point to, we did this report on Pima County in Tucson as well. Estimations and their accounting is even more vague than phoenix. I mean, we look at just the basic numbers here They have sources that range anywhere from 27 to 210 million dollars in spending I mean, I don't understand how that's acceptable if you're a business running your financials like this You're not going to be a business much longer, but they can account for just 17.

8 million dollars in spending So I don't understand why it's so difficult for these cities to do their job. But I think as taxpayers, we deserve a clear and accurate accounting of the vast resources that are being put into this issue, especially when there's not much of a dent being made.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah, how many FOIAs do you think you, you submitted to get all that information?

And uh, for anyone who doesn't know what a FOIA is, Freedom of Information Act request. So, uh, I can imagine you must have a department that simply sends out FOIAs

Austin Van Der Hayden: all the time. Well, a lot [00:13:00] of this, a lot of this just came from us, right? And so we don't have a set department. We just submitted these ourselves, but yeah, it felt like dozens, honestly, and just tried to, took us a long time to get this information.

Right, right.

Leyla Gulen: And I wouldn't suggest this, but I mean, if you take 250 million, you could put into the hands of each homeless person, hundreds of thousands of dollars. They wouldn't be homeless anymore. I'm not suggesting that. Please don't, you know, anybody hearing this, do not think that's what I'm recommending.

But when you think about it. The waste. I mean, when you see the numbers go up instead of go down, what, where are we falling behind? Where are we just not getting it? And what would be the solution? I know that you've got a reform that's on the ballot in November, but what is your idea of a solution to truly get these people off of the street and the help that they so desperately need?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Yeah, so to the city's credit, I think they've done a decent job of [00:14:00] introducing a few new things. The community court is one of the big ones. Where it essentially allows individuals to face an alternative other than going to prison, which I think that's one of the key takeaways here too is no one's, no one's advocating for criminalizing homelessness or for putting these individuals in jail, they need help.

And we, again, we don't think it's compassionate to, to have these individuals on the streets in 115 degrees in a tent, things like that. It's just not compassionate. I also think we've talked about this a couple of times. I think it's important to just enforce the laws that are already on the books. If you were to enforce laws against public urination and defecation, burglary, assault, illegal trespassing, things of those natures, I think a vast majority of these problems would go away.

At the same time, I think it would go back to housing. I think we need housing of all types and sorts. And I really think it's a multi tiered approach that is needed here. I don't think that anyone's disputing that homelessness is an incredibly complex issue. I think that it's going to take some time, but I think [00:15:00] that there are ways to do it.

And it has to start with enforcing the laws on the books, otherwise we're not going to get anywhere.

Leyla Gulen: One of your articles mentioned the Office of Homeless Solutions, what do they have to say about it?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Yeah, the Office of Homeless Solutions is really at the epicenter of all of this. And one of the things that I've also expressed to some folks here is that if you were to go and ask the city council folks from.

Phoenix, Tucson, the County Board of Supervisors down in Pima County. If you were to ask them, where's this money going? I don't think they would even have an answer for you. I don't, I genuinely don't think that they would know. Uh, so the Office of Homeless Solutions is really where we started here. And I think one of the big things that the Office of Homeless Solutions, one of their struggles is that they've got a lot of visions, they've got a lot of plans, but they don't have a lot to show for it.

And this is something that was very clear in the lawsuit that I mentioned earlier, is that they testified that they had all of these great plans to open up. Hundreds of, potentially thousands of new beds, shelter spaces, but they never get done. And they testified last year that this safe [00:16:00] outdoor camping space was going to be opened.

This new facility for these individuals that were down in the streets of the zone to be able to camp, have public bathrooms, showers, it would be supervised, and that would be opened by last October. That's still not fully opened. And so that's, we've seen government failure at every step of the way here because they can't even open up that at the right time that they say they will.

And so, yeah, the Office of Homeless Solutions, they don't really seem to have many solutions.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah. And what about the roster within that office? Is it partisan at all? Is it, what kind of experience do these people have? What is their background exactly?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Sure. The only person that I really know is the director and that's Scott Hall.

And he discusses how he was homeless at one point in time. And I think they focus a lot on behavioral outreach and communications with the homeless individuals. And so we've heard. A [00:17:00] lot of times, business owners will ask them directly, How am I supposed to be able to run my business? Because that's the reality of it, is these individuals that own a business or a property in the zone or in Esteban Park or the 100 acre wood down in Tucson, they say all the time, We don't feel safe going to work.

We don't feel safe having our customers come in. We don't even have customers because they don't feel safe. Our employees are quit. There's those types of situations happening. And when they go and they say to the office of homeless solutions or to Scott Hall, what do we do about this? Please help us remove some of these individuals who are breaking the laws, who are breaking into our properties, things of that nature.

Um, Scott Hall will say, well, it's about building rapport with these individuals that are on the streets. And sometimes if you ask them eight times to accept the shelter, And they refuse every time the ninth time will be the time that they accept it. And so there's really been an allowance from the office FOMA solutions, allowing them to continue to stay on the streets and continue this behavior.

And that's been their entire approach [00:18:00] is really. Again, just letting them be voluntarily homeless.

Leyla Gulen: It sounds very arbitrary because Scott Hall, I'd be curious to know what his history as far as, does he talk about previous drug abuse or was he just down and out? What caused, do you know what caused his homelessness?

I do not. No. Okay. Because one, one homeless story is going to be different from the next. Right. But I got to tell you just in going through social media, for instance, things that will randomly pop up on my feet, for instance, is this influencer who actually he's established in Phoenix. And he speaks directly to homeless people in Phoenix.

I don't know how this ever got onto my feed, but it did. And I will tell you, 10 out of 10 times, every single person he talks to, they're all drug abusers, addicts, [00:19:00] and have mental issues. So, has there ever been a discussion on maybe involuntary drug treatment and mental treatment?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Quite the opposite, actually.

I'll give you two examples here. So one county board supervisor down in Pima County, Matt Hines, Dr. Matt Hines, he has said many times, these are not individuals that are. drug abusers or doing criminal activities. These are our neighbors, our family, our friends, they're just down on their luck. And so you've seen down in Tucson and Pima County, they're trying to paint this as a, there is no issue with drug abuse, substance abuse, things like that.

I can tell you when people on the ground down there, there's a great group that we've worked with the Tucson Crime Free Coalition, and they've talked about the fentanyl use down there. And I mean, you're right at the border, right down in Tucson. And so we always talk about how if something's going down in Phoenix, It's already passed through Tucson.

And so really they're [00:20:00] ground zero for this issue. Um, but, but that you cannot address homelessness without first addressing mental health and substance abuse. It goes hand in hand and you've seen up here in Phoenix, kind of the same thing. Uh, they have the housing first approach. So their answer to this issue has been, we're going to give these individuals a taxpayer funded apartment.

We're not going to, uh, mandate treatment. We're not going to mandate a job or anything like that. So in reality, it's almost more dangerous for these individuals to have these taxpayer funded apartments because they continue that same lifestyle in the apartment. But if they overdose, there's nobody there.

To see them. And so we don't have statistics on kind of the death rate, but, but we've heard stories of those types of things happening many times. That's their answer. They don't want to,

Leyla Gulen: what planet are they living on? What planet are they living on that they think that is [00:21:00] the solution? It's like giving a drunk driver a car to make sure that they can go out and get more alcohol.

It just, it makes absolutely no sense in not addressing the core issues, as you stated, mental health and drug abuse. And yet, the taxpayer is still expected to keep forking over money for free housing that, that they're gonna trash, because they trash everything else. So it's not like they're going to take care of it.

Austin Van Der Hayden: Absolutely. I mean, we've seen, there was a former city council member here in Phoenix who was saying that this issue is entirely because wages aren't high enough. And that's what the issue is that again, they're just trying to paint it as these individuals are down on their luck. It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz don't look behind the curtain kind of thing.

They don't want to talk about addressing these other issues because it's hard. It's hard to have these tough conversations. Um, but when you've seen the numbers [00:22:00] again, 92 percent increase in homelessness from 2018, 2023 in Maricopa County, you have to start addressing some of those issues. Otherwise, you're never going to change anything.

Um, yeah, I mean, it isn't just unique to Phoenix. We've seen it all over the place and in a lot of these cities, their approach is housing first because they think, well, if an individual is homeless and you put them in a home, they're not homeless anymore. But there are so many other underlying conditions that are happening here.

And you're never, ever going to fix this problem if you don't first address those.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah, they're going to overdose in the hallway is what they're going to do. It's, yeah, call me a cynic, call me a skeptic, but the people, the very same people who are saying, Oh, it's the housing crisis. And Oh, if you just gave them a place to live, everything will be fine.

What do they have to gain? By trying to convince everybody that is the solution because I don't [00:23:00] ever believe that anybody who says, Oh, this is the better way to go because it is without them benefiting by it for some reason, I just, I don't trust people that way. So do you have any idea as to how they could potentially benefit by these inadequate and harmful and ridiculous policies?

Austin Van Der Hayden: I think you look at the money that the city is getting right and the federal funds that continue to pour in if this issue goes away they stop getting those funds and so that could be one of the reasons why you see some of those things I know like perfect example Denver they implemented a universal basic income program so no conditions they're giving homeless individuals 1, 000 a month no conditions that's what we're going to do we're just going to give them money you Their homeless rates have actually gone up because, again, you're being incentivized to stay homeless and to have no change in your [00:24:00] lifestyle.

They're giving you a thousand dollars to stay on the streets and continue what you're doing. And so, I think it's just such a flawed view of reality. And I don't

Leyla Gulen: really selfish. There's a reason for it, though. And you just said it. If the problem goes away, the money goes away. So they're incentivized, even though they have to live in the same garbage and the same diseased, riddled streets that the rest of us have to.

But they get to somehow. view it from their house on the hill, so to speak.

Austin Van Der Hayden: No, absolutely. And I mean, that's the reality of it. These numbers are staggering. I mean, you combine just Tucson and Phoenix, we're talking upwards at the maximum, looking at almost 400 Those are outrageously high numbers. And that's just to address homelessness.

Meanwhile, the numbers are continuing to go up. And so, [00:25:00] okay, you see the numbers go up, the money's gonna go up. That's kind of the trend that we've been following here. So the more that this becomes an issue, the more money's gonna come in. Uh, that's the reality here.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah, it's like some of these, these fundraisers, these.

Diamond studded fundraisers where you pay tens of thousands of dollars for a plate and with all the numbers of people who have shown up and, Oh, look, we raised a million dollars. I mean, it's like a drop in the bucket compared to what it actually costs to put on the event. Absolutely. Yeah, I, I can't stand those things because it's just an excuse for people to dress up and show off with really very little result in the end.

Maybe some money's raised, but not as much as you could have just written a check and said, all right. Here you go, but in this case, you perpetuate the problem, you have to keep asking for more money and the people who are asking for the money, well, [00:26:00] they're taken care of and maybe a little bit trickles down to the problem, which never gets fixed.

But the Goldwater Institute is trying to do something about it and it's showing up on the 2024 ballot. So tell us a bit more about this first in the nation.

Austin Van Der Hayden: Yes. Like you said, first in the nation reform, honestly, we're just trying to help the law abiding citizens, the business owners, the property owners who have had to really take matters into their own hands here.

Like I mentioned, the police officers testified in court that they were told not to enforce the law, not to go down into the zone and do some of these things. And so you've had to take on any sort of mitigating expense. If you've had to build a fence up to, to block off your property, hire private security, put in a security system, whatever it may be, you can take off a portion or file a tax credit to receive a portion of your property taxes back.

The point of our property taxes is to receive the public services that the city provides. really owes to us. And when you're not receiving those services, we think that you should be able to get a [00:27:00] portion of your, your property tax back. And so it's not going to fix the problem entirely, but it's certainly going to help.

And at the end of the day, if these cities fix this problem and they do their jobs, no one's going to have to file for a tax credit and no one's going to have to file to get their money back. And so it incentivizes the cities to do their job while at the same time going if they don't do their job, you have a way to keep them accountable.

And that's this tax credit. So I think that it has kind of a dual purpose there. It's Prop 312. And I think it's a great starting point for these property owners and these business owners that have been suffering for way too long.

Leyla Gulen: Yeah. Tell us what was the prop number again?

Austin Van Der Hayden: 312.

Leyla Gulen: 312. Prop 312. It's going to be on the Arizona ballot.

Is it for all of Arizona or just?

Austin Van Der Hayden: It is. Yeah. It's for all of Arizona. I think, I mean, we, Flagstaff, uh, is dealing with this. This isn't just a Phoenix issue. And so we, we wanted to make sure anybody who's dealing with it, with this issue [00:28:00] has a way to keep your local government accountable. Otherwise, it's going to be more unchecked spending.

It's going to be more visions and plans instead of solutions. And through this whole report, I think the one key takeaway is we can't trust our government here. I mean, we can't trust them to fix this issue. We can't trust them to have clear and transparent accounting of what they're spending. And so this is really a way to keep them accountable.

So I think that it's an incredibly important ballot initiative. That I know a ton of business owners and property owners have supported.

Leyla Gulen: And what kind of outreach are you doing so that people understand leading up to election day, uh, what the prop is about and how to find out more information about it, because I'd imagine running commercials and things like that would be one way, but you know, sometimes when people get to the ballot box, they've got a million different props on their card and they don't know what's what.

So how are you getting the word out?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Yeah, we are. We're going out into the community and speaking to a lot of different organizations, a lot of different groups, and if you have a [00:29:00] group or a community meeting or anything that we could be helpful at and kind of talk through some of the things that we've got going on more broadly at Goldwater Institute, but this proposition as well, please reach out to us, goldwaterinstitute.

org, and you can find our contact information that way. We would love to connect with you and figure out how we can help in any way.

Leyla Gulen: Okay, fantastic. And if anybody wants to get in touch with you, how should they do that?

Austin Van Der Hayden: Yeah, you can just give our main line a call, which is on goldwaterinstitute. org. I should have that number off the top of my head, but I don't, so I can get that for you.

But yeah, I would think goldwaterinstitute. org is the best way to go. And just, you'll find our contact information that way. And I'm happy to speak with anybody who's got concerns, suggestions, Or anything that we can help to do to make Arizona a freer state.

Leyla Gulen: Okay, Adlif, thank you so much. Austin Vanderheiden, Municipal Affairs Liaison for the Goldwater Institute, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having

[00:30:00] me.

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