Donny

I’ve been working on this episode for some time, I’m glad to finally be able to share it. I’ve been meeting up and talking with Donny quite a bit over the last few months and after getting to know him was able to record interviews with him on four separate occasions.

Donny’s story is a an important one, it’s a story that has been repeated across the US, that I have heard different versions of countless times. Donny had dedicated his life to his work, and after two injuries he was unable to return to work, his union hall filing his disability for him. He had a wife and multiple children. It was around 2005 and his doctor put him on high doses of the drug oxycontin, a drug Donny had never heard of and didn’t know anything about.

He became addicted and was eventually introduced to heroin. His nephew involved him in an undercover drug sting (involving just ten valium) and he was sentenced to three years in prison. After getting out he began to experience homelessness.

Donny was desperate enough to get away from addiction that he attempted suicide.

Donny was incredibly insightful about his own addiction and situation, and very open about trauma he has experienced. His story paints the picture of a similar path that many Americans have been on. They get hurt, they can’t work, and they end up homeless. Another common story across America is people being prescribed to oxycontin and it eventually leading to heroin. I couldn’t thank him enough about being willing to share his story.

His story paints a picture of someone who desperately wanted to work, a hard worker whose dedication to his work led to his second injury. Listening to him, I think it really shows how almost anyone in America’s working class could end up experiencing homelessness given the wrong series of events. It’s important to understand the different paths that lead people to homelessness and down the path of addiction, and how just being plain unlucky can mess up everything.

Once he was homeless it opened him up to series of incidents with law enforcement where he told me he was harassed and pressed with false charges.

Everyone who is homeless has their own story, their own reason for being there. I think we need to work as a society to better understand why people end up homeless and why some of them stay homeless. Donny has persevered through countless hardships, and sharing his story, him and I both hope will spread some compassion and understanding about people living on the street. Especially with recent supreme court ruling over the summer and the new administration coming into power. It’s more important than ever to make sure homeless communities are not being harassed and disbanded, and that people have what they need to be warm for winter.

I know I’ve been kind of silent lately, I’ve been working on a few different things, but mostly this lately. I’ll post a general update soon. I’m also going to start creating group messages with my subscribers for each episode so if people want to, they can message and ask questions or comment about each episode after listening and I can respond to any questions. Thank you for reading and listening, I hope everyone is doing okay out there.