RuthFox

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

A new B.C. study found that free naloxone prevented 4 out of 5 potential overdose deaths.
That's not ideology or politics.

That's thousands of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, and family members still alive today.

Harm reduction keeps people alive!!!!!!!!!!!!

Treatment, housing, and recovery help them rebuild their lives.

We need all of it.
https://t.co/zyIpNltnvr

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Homelessness doesn't appear out of nowhere, it happens when the cost of living skyrockets, rents rise faster than wages, housing becomes unaffordable, and people are pushed out of their homes.

Groceries. Gas. Clothing. Rent. Everything costs more while too many paycheques stay the same.

High rents mean more tents. It's not a mystery, it's a policy choice.

[Lorraine Lam @lorrainelamchop]

various groups have been told by security at union they can’t do outreach or provide harm reduction supplies. the risk of overdose continues to rise AND IT’S HAPPENING. Hearing of a death already. SCS’ close in two weeks.

@Metrolinx out here murdering ppl.
where is the media?

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

SHOCKER:
When you close supervised consumption sites you don’t get less public drug use, you get more public drug use, more overdoses, and more people dying alone.

You didn’t solve the problem.
You just pushed it into parks, alleys, stairwells, and neighbourhoods with even less support and supervision.
https://t.co/xmqw35fp8a

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Grocery stores asking struggling customers to “donate to fight hunger” at the checkout while they throw out perfectly good food behind closed doors is one of the biggest hypocrisies in our society.

If food is still safe to eat and within days of expiring, it should be going to food banks, shelters, and people in need, not dumpsters.

We don’t have a food shortage, we have a system that would rather waste food than feed people.

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Honestly, if “drug-free housing” is your entire solution to homelessness and addiction, just admit you don’t actually want to solve it.

You build housing, then attach mental health, addictions, healthcare and recovery supports to it. That’s how people rebuild their lives.
Anything else is just political theatre.

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

I just have to pop on here and break this down.

OMG. The conservative solution to homelessness is “drug-free housing.” 🤯

So let’s think this through.

You’re going to force people struggling with addiction into treatment before they can access housing?

Where exactly? Into what treatment system? The one that’s already overwhelmed? Or are we suddenly building thousands of new treatment beds overnight? Which is impossible btw it would take decades to build, and do they even understand how much this would cost??

And what happens to the people who aren’t ready, relapse, or refuse treatment?
You just leave them homeless?
That’s not solving homelessness, that’s expanding it.

Housing first doesn’t mean housing without support.
It means getting people indoors first, then connecting them to mental health care, addiction treatment, recovery supports, doctors, counsellors, and stability.

Because it’s a lot easier to rebuild your life when you have a door that locks.

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Ontario:
“We can’t afford housing, healthcare, mental health care, or treatment.”

Also Ontario:
“Here’s $3 BILLION for more jail cells.”

Sheesh… that’s over $1 million per bed.
Imagine if we invested in preventing crisis instead of expanding cages.

[Harman Bhangu @HarmanBhanguBC]

135 people died from toxic drugs in B.C. last month alone.

The majority of deaths are happening INSIDE supportive housing, shelters, and SROs, the very places the NDP claimed would make people safer.

After years of failed experiments, reversals, and excuses, families are still burying loved ones while this government refuses to admit its approach is failing.

British Columbians were promised solutions. Instead, the crisis keeps getting worse.

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

The truth is:

Anyone can become addicted.
Anyone can lose their job.
Anyone can battle mental illness.
Anyone can become disabled.
Anyone can end up homeless.
Anyone can go hungry.

None of these are moral failures, they are HUMAN REALITIES.

The line between stability and poverty is far thinner than most people want to believe.

Most of us are closer to the edge than we realize.
Compassion should never depend on whether tragedy has happened to you yet.

[Diana Chan McNally @DianaCMcNally]

As I wrote in my own @TorontoStar op-ed on this issue, it's already illegal to openly use drugs on the TTC. What @fordnation is doing is giving transit constables the power to arrest and seize the belongings of people they *think* might have or use drugs. That's called profiling.

[Ottawa Citizen @OttawaCitizen]

How 'nursing homes without walls' are helping seniors remain in their homes https://t.co/wU29OeVaJe

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

If we banned alcohol tomorrow and started arresting people for drinking, we wouldn’t end alcohol use.
We’d create an unregulated supply run by organized crime that would eventually see people dying from what’s in it!

Sound familiar?

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Unpopular opinion:
A lot of “mental health issues” are actually survival issues.
Secure housing, food in the fridge and bills paid.
Stability isn’t a luxury, it’s prevention, and pretending money doesn’t affect mental health is a privilege!

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

All of Canada should declare a public health emergency over the illegal toxic drug crisis.

This is in every province, every city, every small town, every community.
Scale up EVERYTHING: harm reduction, treatment, recovery, mental health care, supportive housing.

Organized crime controls the drug supply, and until that changes, our job is to reduce the harms, keep people alive, and give them a pathway forward.
Because people are dying faster than they can recover.

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Probably the best description of how we should address homelessness, addiction, and mental health:
HOUSING FIRST doesn’t mean housing without resources.
It means housing with supports.
Housing with treatment. Housing with mental health care.
Housing with stability. Housing with dignity.
You can’t rebuild a life while someone is still trying to survive outside.
Be like Finland.

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

UPDATE: We all need some inspiration ....
You never know who’s listening when you share your story.
Two years ago I spoke at a high school, and received this email a year ago from a set of twins who were in that room…
My wife and I have been supporting them ever since,
and now they’re coming up on 3 YEARS SOBER.

READ THIS:

Hello,
My name is [..........], and I wanted to take a moment to reach out and sincerely thank you.
Not too long ago, you came to my school, [..........], and shared your story. My twin sister and I came up to speak with you afterward, and I can honestly say that hearing your story gave us the strength to begin getting out of the difficult situation we were in.

When you came to speak at our school, my sister and I had just been kicked out of our home and abandoned by our mother. We felt completely lost and terrified, unsure of what the future held. But when you looked us in the eyes and told us that we do deserve a good life, that it’s okay to struggle and have really hard days, but that sobriety and building a better future is absolutely possible, it truly changed something in me.

That day made me realize that I didn’t have to stay stuck in the life I was living. I saw that I had a choice and a chance to break the cycle of addiction and start putting my health and future first.

Your honesty and raw emotion resonated so deeply with me. My sister and I come from a family where addiction has, unfortunately, been the norm. We lost our father to it, and more recently, our 24-year-old cousin. Growing up with two parents actively struggling with addiction was incredibly hard. I became addicted to pills at the age of 9, and from there, things only spiraled.

I’m incredibly proud to say that today, my sister and I are out of that toxic situation. We’re on track to graduate high school, both celebrating almost 2 years clean and we’ve even gotten our own apartment together at just 17 years old. I never thought any of this could be possible, but your words gave us hope when we needed it the most.

Thank you for showing up that day and sharing your truth. You reminded us that even in the darkest times, there is always a way forward if you’re willing to fight for it. I truly can’t thank you enough.

This is why I speak up.
This is why I share my story,
because one moment, one conversation, and one story
can change a life forever.

I hope this inspires others!

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

This is what making a difference looks like.

A Canadian millionaire built 99 tiny homes
with addiction and mental health supports, solar power, and job training.
Not to maximize profit,
but to reduce homelessness.

Like imagine that!!!
Turns out you don’t need billions to change lives.
Just a backbone.

[Lorraine Lam @lorrainelamchop]

just also gonna add that i didn’t see Moise or any other city councillor speak up when Chrissy froze to death this winter across the park he wants to close at night.

what then, you say, about violence and safety?

[Jeff Schlemmer @Jeff_Schlemmer_]

“Ford government fails to reach poverty reduction target, report says”
Hard to imagine a more predictable headline.
And one less troubling to the only person who could readily change it.
And yet will never lift a finger to do so.
https://t.co/yf1oV9a3eJ via @newmarkettoday