“Not guilty” does not mean “innocent”

E.M. was so incredibly brave: not just for herself, but for all women

The system failed. Judge Carrocia seemed to lack any speck of training in trauma & PTSD or in the end, basic humanity towards E.M.

/1 cbc.ca/news/canada/li… No one will ever convince me that anyone who listened to the testimony of E.M. or those 5 hockey players, can actually believe those “men” were not sexual predators who found prey in E.M

/2

This is the 2nd in a series of threads where I talk about the reality of ppl living in homelessness on the streets of #ldnont

Today I will tell the story of a young man who is literally dying of starvation

1/ His story will show the impacts of living outside w a severe chronic illness & how hard it is to find shelter in #ldnont

First I will explain the landscape of emergency housing options in @cityoflondon. If you want to skip ahead to the story, scroll about 1/2-way through

2/

Today is the first in a series of threads where I will talk about the reality of ppl living in homelessness on the streets of #ldnont

These threads will share facts about the reality of homelessness & share ppl’s stories of housing success & housing deprivation

1/ All stories are shared w consent (enthusiastic consent actually! W/o exception, people want to share in order to help other people)

Stories have been edited and personal details blurred in order to protect everyone’s confidentiality

2/

Right now DULF (Drug User Liberation Front) is practicing civil disobedience in order to save lives

DULF is handing out clean heroin, cocaine & methamphetamine

Why? Bc the history of harm reduction is that all life saving harm reduction interventions have begun w drug users

1/

https://twitter.com/AndreaWoo/status/1382438476293894144

Drug users pioneered clean needle exchange while docs & govt tsk’ed tsk’ed about moral hazard (what if more ppl injected drugs??)

Drug users pioneered 1st safe injection site before Insite, while docs & govt tsk’ed tsk’ed (how can we allow them to KEEP injecting drugs??)

2/

Every morning I review my patients who were in Emerg or hospital in #ldnont the day before.

Today, I paused at a face sheet to a visit. Written in the diagnosis field (which should contain a diagnosis, not a judgement), it said:

“Here most days”

1/ I paused & reflected

“Here most days”. The tone behind those 3 words was palpable

This person faces many of the challenges common to my patients

Sleeping rough on a cold Dec night

Uses drugs to stay awake, warm, safe. MH exacerbated by the survival choice to use drugs

2/