04/04/2021
I had a great time serving dinner at our homeless shelter in Santa Clarita tonight with my Rotary Satellite club, and will make a proper post thanking them and the shelter tomorrow. At the end of the night, the shelter was going to throw away some leftover food that would no longer be good to eat the next day. So I took the food and brought it to a camp I work with in Canoga Park - neighbors living directly on the street. Some in tents, some in the open air. They were really happy to receive the food, but I learned that a neighbor I saw almost every time I visited that camp had passed away just earlier that week, from a he**in overdose. The first time I met the people who lived right there with him, they asked me for Narcan (the op**te overdose rescue drug). Tarzana treatment center’s needle exchange van used to frequently distribute Narcan to any op**te users who needed/ wanted it, including our homeless neighbors. But due to the drastic increase in he**in use our nation experienced due to the pandemic and subsequent government shutdown, America also experienced a Narcan shortage, and Tarzana stopped handing them out. The paramedics didn’t make it on time with theirs, and that neighbor died on the street this week. I can’t help but wonder if he would still be alive today if I had helped them get the Narcan they asked for. If he would have lived to see another day in which he had a chance to change his life. Please let me know if you’re aware of a way we can help Tarzana obtain more Narcan, and I sincerely appreciate the efforts my friends and I are undergoing to try to expand Tarzana’s services, including their rehab. May your soul rest in peace, neighbor. The light and dark in me see and honor the light and dark in you, namaste 🙏🏻🖤.
