Penticton outreach worker trying to create more open conversation around overdose and prevention in the area

Photo: Contributed

One Penticton resident is hoping to help create a conversation on overdose prevention, starting a local Facebook group to educate, bring awareness and help equip locals with skills.

Desiree Franz has been working with vulnerable populations in the area for a while now, focusing the last two years on people who use substances.

“I just feel like there needs to be more education surrounding what it means for people who use substances, what their day-to-day life looks like and how we can be a bit more compassionate and educated in dealing with it,” Franz said.

“I guess just through working with the population, not only are we in a global pandemic but we've been dealing with the opioid crisis for over a decade now and Penticton isn't immune to the effects of that.”

The stigmatization of these groups in the community isn’t helping either, Franz explained.

“Oh, 100 per cent, it's bad. The people that I work with, both in my personal and in my professional life because I am part of an abstinence-based recovery group as well. The stories I hear basically is they'll go into McDonald's and order a coffee and sit there and 20 minutes later they'll get booted out. Meanwhile, two little old men have been sitting there for four hours and nobody confronts them."

“There's a lot of talk about this population in different ways with substance use, there's an overlap with homelessness and our community and our city council have taken a really ignorant stance on it. The problem isn't going away because we're going to wish it away.”

Lately, conversations in city council have brought up concerns regarding supportive housing in the area and they moved to seek an independent audit of BC Housing projects in the city.

Supportive housing complexes, like Compass House in Penticton, have had neighbouring properties complaining to city council over ongoing issues.

Franz would like to see the community look at the models in the world that actually work to deal with this problem, and see Canada decriminalize substances and offer a safe supply.

“It seems silly, I want people that use substances to be treated the exact same way everybody else is treated in this community. They have a health problem and whether we want to argue that it's their choice that they started using substances or not, the issue is they have a medical condition that needs to be treated as such.”

And she believes having the community understand the overdose crisis and proper prevention is a good step in looking after the issues.

“I responded to, I can't even count how many overdoses now, so I was trained by nurses and I've trained quite a few people in how to use naloxone ... The fact of the matter is, you probably will come across people in your day-to-day life who may be experiencing overdoses and you should probably be equipped to handle that.”

Penticton had 474 overdose calls in 2020, up 87 per cent over the previous year.

“And those are only are people who actually called 911,” Franz said, pointing out that others try to get their friends to help first before calling for help for fear of repercussions.

“The problem is going to stay here and nobody really wants to open their eyes.”

Franz is also working on other projects on the side that lend to overdose prevention and destigmatization and education for the community.

“There's much more to come and I hope that the community can really get on board,” she added, also suggesting for people to reach out to Interior Health (IH) on their programs about harm reduction services.

For more information on Franz’s initiative, visit her Penticton Overdose Prevention Facebook page.