Watch: A wave of overdoses is hitting an already vulnerable population
Francesca Coleman, known to friends as “St. Louis,” has been unhoused since the age of 15. Now 24, Coleman sleeps in Tongva park, across from the famous Santa Monica pier in California. Like many unhoused people in the Los Angeles area, Coleman uses meth in an attempt to ease chronic pain, anxiety, and depression.
On a Wednesday morning in July, physician Coley King checked in with Coleman in Tongva Park. King practices street medicine, which means the majority of his patients are unhoused, and Coleman is one of his patients. A routine part of King’s rounds is warning drug users about fentanyl, which has been increasingly tainting other street drugs, and has been a major factor in the U.S.’s accelerating overdose rate.
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