The opioid epidemic is a public health crisis – we have to treat it like one. Some towns are making real progress with state and federal grants, but they need more resources. My plan, the #CAREact, would spend $100B on treatment, recovery, and research. https://t.co/2sM3NvksNj— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 1, 2019
Most of the public has no idea how addicts are treated by the very people who are supposed to be helping them. When I say that places such as the Pine Street Inn do NOTHING to help people stop their drug addictions, that is what I mean.
They're happy to take as much money as you want to give them, but wherever that money is going, it's not going toward helping people solve the problems that made them homeless.
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Quotes from the article that Senator Warren cited/My responses:
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Quote:
She opened the Yellow Pages and started calling treatment centers in cities all over Minnesota. Again and again, Monica and Louise heard recorded out-for-the-weekend messages saying to call back on Monday.
My response:
Yup, what nonwealthy person in a crisis hasn't heard "call back on Monday" for a variety of things? I don't have a drug problem, but I know that this is what it's like to try to get help for almost anything.
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Quote:
They talk to many towns, he said, who aren’t thinking big enough.
“They get Narcan” — an opioid-reversal drug — “or they get one little project and they think that is going to fix it,” he said. “There is no easy answer. It is a lot of work. If we were doing only one thing, just Narcan, our problem would be as bad as anywhere else. You have to do it all.”
My response:
I am sure that if there were an audit of every homeless shelter in Massachusetts, a sudden visit from authorities who tested every staffperson for the ability to recognize the need for and administer Narcan, most of the staffpeople would fail that test. Even that, they don't know how to do, aren't properly trained to do. As for a holistic framework for addressing the problems that make people homeless; I'll say it the way that most homeless people would say it. Most of the people who work in homeless shelters sit on their asses and don't do shit to help you with anything. You really ought to ask it that way. Try a short survey:
"Dear Homeless Person:
Would you say that the majority of people who work in homeless shelters sit on their asses and don't do shit to help anyone?
Would you say that you're screamed at or otherwise treated as if you are inferior by most of the people who work in homeless shelters?
Would you say that trying to get most of the people to work in homeless shelters to help you even with the least difficult thing that you nonetheless need their help with is a monumental effort and that many of them even seem to go out of their way to make things harder for you?
Do you wake up most mornings asking why the fuck you bother not killing yourself, since it is obvious that nobody cares if you live or die?"
Make the survey anonymous and reassure that there will be no repercussions for honest answers, and it will be elucidating for everyone who believes the bullshit Hallmark card version of what homeless shelters say about themselves at their websites.
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Quote:
The opioid crisis arrived in Morrison County a bit later than the rest of the country, but its spread there followed a similar pattern — with prescription opioids coming first, then a legal crackdown on pills that left some users desperate enough to try street heroin.
My response:
You mean that the pharmaceutical industry is out of control? Go figure; who knew?
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Quote:
When Monica came to their clinic, she was treated like any other patient, not as a drug addict or a criminal. “Honestly, if they had shuddered, I would have run out the door,” she said. “I told them all these horrible dark things things I had done, and Dr. DeVine was like, ‘OK, that stuff happened. Now let’s get you better.’”
My response:
The underlying assumption of the homeless shelter system is that all homeless people are drug addicts or criminals. This morning, and yesterday morning, the mattress of my bunkbed at the Pine Street Inn was hit by new staffpeople at 6:05 a.m. We don't have to be out of the dormitories until 6:45 a.m., but these people felt that I wasn't getting out of bed fast enough; after all, the fluorescent lights were already turned on at 5:50 a.m., and I should have leapt out of bed then, as far as they were concerned. I have never done a drug in my life. I've never even been drunk. I told both of them, "Don't hit my bed," and they both responded as if I were wrong to tell them not to invade what little personal space I have in that environment. The one from yesterday poked the mattress right next to my head; the one this morning more or less beat up the mattress by my feet. Most new employees are like this, and many of them never really change their prejudices, even if they are told by supervisors that they need to tone it down. ______________
Quote:
In places like Dayton, Ohio, and Huntington, West Virginia, people have turned to these coordinated efforts only at a later stage in the overdose crisis, amid a wave of deaths tied to the drug fentanyl. An opioid 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin, fentanyl began widely showing up in heroin in eastern states after 2013 and has driven drug overdoses to record-breaking levels, exceeding yearly deaths from guns, car accidents, and AIDS at its height.
My response:
Oh yeah, fentanyl. I think there's a piece of paper saying something about fentanyl on one of the bulletin boards at the women's shelter of the Pine Street Inn, or there was one a few months ago.
