We have work to do

Mike Corey
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

I sat in two meetings today and heard two distressing stories. They wrecked me, and when I’m wrecked, I must write. One was about the opioid crisis, and the other was about the homelessness crisis.

The drug addiction crisis was a crisis long before the surge of attention it’s received in the past few years; it was a crisis when it was primarily affecting communities of color in the 1980s and 1990s, when we as a society emphasized criminalization and vilification over rehabilitation and compassionate care.

That can be true while this is also true: The crisis has worsened and widened dramatically since. Nationally, fewer than 10,000 were dying of drug overdoses in the 1980s; last year, around 60,000 died of overdoses.

The problem is particularly acute in Ohio. In 2014, we lost 2,531 people to overdoses; in 2015, 3,050; in 2016, 4,149. Those were each record-breaking numbers. We’re on pace to smash that record again in 2017.

The crisis is overrunning the criminal justice system, the foster care system, coroners’ offices, hospitals, social service agencies, and on and on.

The problem is this grave, one organization shared today: They’ve received multiple reports of children burying their food in backyards. These kids are trying to prevent their parents from selling that food for drugs.

The second meeting included discussion of an area homeless shelter. It is the largest in the nation. Despite its size, it is well over capacity.

Tonight, 250 children will sleep there. 87 of them are toddlers. 24 of them are babies, less than a year old.

And these are a pittance of the many challenges we face. We have so many urgent problems that we need to solve yesterday. I don’t know how we get there. But we won’t get there if we’re apart.

Humanity is capable of terrible, terrifying feats.

But we are capable of monumental, magnificent feats, too. We have no time to waste. Let’s get to it.

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Mike Corey

Written by

Executive Director of @OneVoiceHSC. Alum of @HillaryForOhio, @CDF_Ohio, @BrickerLaw, @SenSherrodBrown, @CHAOhio, @OSU_Law, & @DukeU.