Our new Opinion page feature called You Decide debuts today and we’re hoping it helps keep the discussion going about homelessness in our community.

Once a month we’ll look at a different community issue and ask two stakeholders to discuss it from their perspectives. The first topic begs the question “How should this community respond to homelessness?”

The writers this time are Aberdeen Mayor Erik Larson and the Rev. Sarah Monroe. Both have worked to make conditions better, but the two still ended up on opposite sides of a federal lawsuit.

We’re hoping this draws in more community members to look for solutions and find ways to help. To facilitate the discussion, we’ll post the two pieces on Facebook. And if you don’t like Facebook, we have a dedicated email for comments: youdecide@thedailyworld.com. We’d like to print your comments with your names, as many as we have room for in print and all of them online.

And we’ll follow up with a story on how you can get involved, what organizations and institutions are playing a role and when they meet, how you can volunteer or donate and who the stakeholders and decision makers are.

We could use your help on suggestions for future topics, along with the names of folks who might write about those issues. Please email your suggestions to me at dbarker@thedailyworld.com.

— Doug Barker, Editor