- by Andrea Donaldson

This is the time of year when you will start seeing more evidence of the unhoused and addiction epidemic in your communities. You will start to see more unhoused people and people struggling with addiction walking the streets and camping out in the bushes as the nicer weather approaches.

You will unfortunately start to see more evidence of drug use laying around such as syringes, drug paraphernalia , etc, you may also find sleeping bags and signs of somebody staying in a particular area.

If you come across syringes or anything else drug related please do NOT pick up with your bare hands, use tongs or gloves or call public health or the local police to come discard it properly and safely.

If you come across any area where it seems somebody may be staying and it’s out of the public's eye and way please leave their stuff where it is. It’s all they have and they will 99.9% of the time come back for it. You can even leave them a little note saying they are cared about and you hope their life gets turned around for the better. I’ve done this before as somebody did it for me once when I was unhoused in Vancouver.

If you find an area that looks like somebody is staying there but it’s also littered with drug paraphernalia as stated above remove with caution and leave the personal items behind (sleeping bags, clothes, backpacks, etc).

Please remember these people are still human they are just a little lost right now and don’t need anymore stigma or judgement pushed towards them. Not all of them are terrible people just because their circumstances are different then yours.

Andrea is a recovering addict since July 30th 2015