After years of drug use, poverty and homelessness, Terra Bruneski says she's one of the lucky ones
The mainstream downtown crowd sees them walking the streets, bent at the waist, their bodies and limbs locked into positions they cannot straighten, and disparagingly refer to them as “druggies” and the “walking dead.”
“They don’t have a home, they don’t have a shower, they don’t have a place to get clean clothes. They’re not choosing that,” she said. “You can judge a society by how they treat their most vulnerable and their poorest people. Jesus would have been living out there at Moccasin Flats because he was around the poor and the lepers, the people who needed it most.”
“I’m very, very lucky to be in here,” said Bruneski. “There’s safe-supply stuff downstairs. It takes away the worries of disease and being attacked. Everyone I know that’s homeless has filled out a thing for BC Housing, but there’s not enough housing. There’s not enough space for everybody.” A 46-unit City of Prince George/BC Housing project on Third Avenue will open this fall next to Moccasin Flats and she’s hopeful it will alleviate some of the supportive housing bottlenecks that force poor, sick and drug-addicted people to live on the street.
The risks are clear. “It’s not safe," she said. "Women are getting kidnapped, it’s crazy. It’s so sad to see. We need more housing.” “I almost joined the army, because I could feel the addiction coming, but I didn’t quite get there,” she said. “It’s a lifelong fight. You can sober up for even years and it comes back. Most people are treating an emotional issue where something bad happens, which is more likely to happen in this lifestyle. Pain-killing drugs affect the same part of your brain as physical pain and it's like we’re treating emotional pain.
Bruneski tried to stay clean. She went through detox at UHNBC and was part of the Narcotics Anonymous day program that helped her stop for those two years but it didn’t last. She resumed her heroin habit and when she couldn’t get that Bruneski turned to fentanyl. She’s now on prescribed methadone and safer-supply opioid and tries to avoid illicit drugs.
“The staff get to know the people that are coming, as long as they’re decent people, they give you a bit of slack. But it’s tough kicking them out at 11 when it’s cold because it’s too late at that time to sign into any shelters.” “The drug-addicted community has become more savage because of the fact you can’t afford a place. You can’t afford to live and have to get harsher just to survive. I think if they take away safe supply there will be exponential growth in crime, just because people will have to turn to crime to get what they need to feel better. Safe supply has softened that so much, there’s a lot less criminal element to drug addiction.
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