For groups treating drug dependency during the pandemic, reaching St. Louis’ unhoused addicts is harder than ever
L I F E L BY MIKE FITZGERALD
PHOTOS BY THEO WELLING
The men head toward the big white van almost as soon as it rolls to a stop in front of Russell Park. It’s just after 3 p.m. on a Tuesday. The park, which stands at the corner of Cabanne Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard in the West End neighborhood of north St. Louis, consists of a small patch of grass surrounding a large playground in a neighborhood marked by vacant buildings. Some of the men move with the stiff-legged gait of those who spend their nights sleeping rough, stretched out on concrete or grass. A tall man nicknamed “Swoop,” his hair held together in a series of cascading braids, approaches the van tentatively, his movements halting and cautious as the latest hit of heroin crawls through his veins. Swoop, 43, says he’s been home-
less for about nineteen months, and that he uses heroin to selfmedicate for chronic depression. “The depression makes you want to get high,” he says. “You have no job. Nobody wants to give you a job because of your appearance and what you’re doing.” Occasionally, Swoop earns money from odd jobs in the neighborhood. But when he gets home, it’s still the same story, he says. “We still sitting around,” he says. “We get to come back to an abandoned building. We look around, and it’s depressing as soon as you alk in the door. o the first thing we do, we got money in our pockets, we get high.” As far as COVID-19, Swoop says he’s not worried.
“I’m not really around that many people,” he says. “I think God is good. I don’t know. I’m just not that concerned about it.” Swoop grabs a brown paper bag from a cardboard box piled high with lunches, then a bottled water from one of the cases left on the sidewalk. He joins the line of other men inching forward to the van. Standing at the front of the line are Miles Hoffman and Jen Nagel, staff members of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Recovery, or MoNetwork, located at 4022 South Broadway in south St. Louis. MoNetwork owns and operates the van and collects the items it hands out. Hoffman and Nagel eagerly engage with the men, smoothly reaching for simple black backpacks, known as Harm Reduction its hich they fill ith a long list of items calculated to keep Continued on pg 12
From left: Ambu Bag mask, which is used to revive patients who’ve stopped breathing; Narcan nasal spray to reverse drug overdoses; tourniquets, cotton pellets and single-use cookers; personal hygiene supplies; one-way breath shield given in conjunction with Narcan to perform rescue breathing; a surgical mask to minimize the spread of COVID-19 within the addict community; a handwashing station installed outside the MoNetwork headquarters. 10
RIVERFRONT TIMES
MAY 27-JUNE 2, 2020
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