Latest news with #Homeless
Independent Singapore
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Independent Singapore
Desire to contribute more to society led Liyana Dhamirah to accept call to join politics
When Red Dot United (RDU) founding member Liyana Dhamirah picked up Ravi Philemon's call in 2020, she didn't know it would change the course of her life. Speaking candidly on Mothership's Help Desk, Liyana recalled that she was comfortably settled at the time, having remarried, moved into a new home, and was raising a newborn. 'I was in a good place. I didn't want to rock the boat,' she admitted. But Ravi's request—to help form a new political party—resonated deeply with her. 'It's in my nature to be restless when things are too comfortable,' she shared. 'A part of me always feels called to contribute to society in a meaningful way.' That part ultimately won. After consulting her husband and children, she said yes. Within a tight deadline—just eight days before the 2020 election was called—Liyana became a founding member of RDU. At that point, she thought she would remain a volunteer, much like she had during her previous experience helping Ravi in 2015 during his campaign in Hong Kah North. The decision to step up as a candidate would come later, when it became clear that RDU needed people willing to contest in Jurong GRC, where they would eventually go up against then-Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam's team. 'Back then, nobody else even seemed willing to step into Jurong. We didn't want to let it be a walkover,' she explained. Despite her political journey today, Liyana's story is deeply rooted in hardship. Earlier in the interview, she opened up emotionally about the darkest chapter of her life: experiencing homelessness while pregnant, separated from her two young sons who were living across the border in Johor with her mother. Choking up at one point, Liyana said, 'What was tougher for me was not being homeless. What was tougher was being separated from my kids.' She described how she tried to shield her sons from the truth, framing their visits to her tent by Sembawang Beach as 'staycations by the sea'. She filled their weekends with beach games and activities, trying to create happy memories instead of exposing them to the harsh reality she was facing. When she eventually published her book Homeless in 2019, she built up the courage to give it to her sons, then teenagers, to read. The moment was nerve-wracking. But their reaction was heartwarming: her eldest son thanked her, saying, 'Thank you, Mama, for protecting us. Before reading the book, all I remembered was that it was fun staying by the beach. I never realised we were homeless.' Today, Liyana's story continues to inspire many. Positive comments flooded in under Mothership's YouTube video and Facebook post, with viewers praising her bravery, resilience, and authenticity. 'You can really feel her sincerity,' one commenter wrote. 'Respect to her for turning pain into purpose,' another said. Several others expressed admiration for her decision to step into politics despite her personal hardships, noting that her lived experiences made her a genuine voice for the marginalised. Reflecting on her unlikely journey from living in a tent to contesting in a general election, Liyana said simply, 'Life is strange. If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have said no, never. But here I am.' For her, the decision to join politics wasn't about ambition—it was about giving back. 'It's not about us as individuals,' she said. 'It's about the values we stand for, and the hope we can offer.'
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- The Guardian
‘Where am I going to go?' Dismay as Queensland council begins tearing down tent encampment
Homeless residents of one of Moreton Bay's largest encampments watched on as council rangers and an excavator began tearing down their tents on Wednesday. A dozen police and council officers arrived at Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton on Wednesday morning. The large park, next to the Pine Rivers Showgrounds, has been home to a dozen or more people, with about 15 tents standing when authorities arrived on Wednesday morning. Residents, who had previously been served with notices threatening fines of more than $8,000, were told they had an hour to move. One of the tents destroyed was home to Carol Ross, an Indigenous woman from North Stradbroke Island who has been homeless for two years. Ross was intercepted by officials while walking to the shops. 'I came back, and they were rushing me to get all my stuff out so they can pull it down,' she said. She allowed them to remove her tent 'because I don't want trouble'. Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Ross said she wasn't sure where she would sleep on Wednesday night; she had been left with little more than a mattress. Ross's tent was among two removed from the encampment on Wednesday, with residents expecting authorities to return on Thursday to clear out the rest. Stacey Richardson, another homeless resident of the park, has refused to leave unless she is given an alternative place to live. 'Where am I going to go?' she said. 'They're going to have to drag me out.' Richardson said she had been threatened with a fine, but never warned that her possessions might be removed. Mark Ely said he had been living in a rental about a kilometre down the road for eight years when he became homeless. 'I never missed a rental payment and then the owner sold it to a developer … It's so un-Australian, I can't believe it,' he said. Beau Haywood, the founder of homelessness charity Nourish Street, organised a protest against the council's housing policies at its offices nearby on Wednesday morning. A number of homeless people attended. He said an hour wasn't long enough notice to give to residents to pack up their tents. 'How long would it take you to pack up your house?' The City of Moreton Bay amended its local laws in February to effectively ban homelessness by repealing regulations that had allowed people to set up camp in public spaces such as parks. Sign up to Afternoon Update: Election 2025 Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key election campaign stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Since December it has issued numerous threats that it would fine homeless people up to $8,006 for 'camping' in vans, with pets or, lately, in tents. No fines have yet been issued. Haywood said many people had abandoned their tents to live in less visible sleeping bags or park benches out of fear of being moved on. A spokesperson for the City of Moreton Bay said 'camping on public land, and the storing of goods on public land, contravenes the city council's local laws and is therefore illegal for all people in City of Moreton Bay'. The spokesperson said of 12 people at Eddie Hyland Park, eight had previously been served compliance notices and had therefore 'received a significant amount of notice to comply (in excess of two weeks)'. Four were newly identified and issued new notices. 'This was a scheduled compliance action,' the spokesperson said. All individuals at the park who had been issued with notices 'have been offered the opportunity to be referred by council to specialist homelessness services and the Department of Housing and Public Works,' the spokesperson said. 'It is disappointing that some advocates continue to subject the most vulnerable in our community to accept unsafe, makeshift shelters in public parks as a reasonable solution for homelessness.' Liberal National party minister for housing, Sam O'Connor, said there is 'housing help available'. 'Support has been and will continue to be offered. When support is offered, I urge people to please take it up – whether it's hotel or motel accommodation or being connected to services which can make a real difference,' he said. 'We have people ready to support you and help you take the next step.' There are 4,521 people on the social housing waiting list in Moreton Bay, the longest in Queensland.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New fed prosecutor may be obstacle for supervised drug use sites
BOSTON (SHNS) – Boosting primary care investments, overhauling insurance requirements for medical treatments, and embracing the long-debated idea of supervised drug use facilities top the list of actions Massachusetts physicians want lawmakers to take this term. Doctors affiliated with the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) detailed the group's legislative priorities Wednesday, including action to create a legal framework for the launch of overdose prevention centers — an idea the Bay State's new federal prosecutor has vowed to oppose. Dr. Jessie Gaeta, an addiction medicine specialist who practices with the Boston Health Care for the Homeless program, said policymakers need to 'go beyond' existing opioid crisis response strategies and allow medically trained professionals to monitor street drug use, then intervene and prevent an overdose from turning fatal. At a State House briefing hosted by MMS, Gaeta recounted an experience with a 26-year-old man who fatally overdosed, a story she said is 'happening on repeat in my practice.' Last summer, the man — whom she referred to as Derek — walked into the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Clinic certain he would relapse that day after six weeks of sobriety. A nurse offered to connect Derek to treatment, but he said he wasn't ready. 'What he wanted, simply, was accompaniment while he used. His quote was, 'I'm just looking for a buddy to be with me. I don't want to die,'' Gaeta said. Staff provided Derek with a naloxone overdose reversal kit and urged him to keep his drug dosage small because his tolerance for fentanyl would be lower after six weeks sober. But they could not allow him to stay and use drugs under their watch. 'Without the legal authority to allow him to safely stay within our building while he used, our staff watched Derek walk out the door for the last time,' Gaeta said. 'When he was found an hour and a half later behind a bush in Clifford Park, virtually in the shadow of world-class medicine as well as our state's largest syringe access program, with naloxone at arm's length but by himself, we found ourselves agonizing again over the limits of our current options for helping people who either don't want or can't access treatment in this moment, and also who don't deserve to die.' Activists have been pushing for years for state government to pass a bill authorizing overdose prevention centers, sometimes referred to as safe injection sites or supervised consumption sites. Gaeta said the Mass. Medical Society first voted in 2017 to back the approach as a 'legitimate medical intervention.' The Healey administration announced its support for the idea in 2023, and the Senate approved language last year allowing municipalities to open the sites as part of a broader addiction and substance use bill. However, the House did not mirror that move, and legislative negotiators dropped the provision from the final measure. The Mass. Medical Society endorsed legislation this term (H 2196 / S 1393) that would include overdose prevention centers in a range of harm reduction services, extending legal protections to staff, clients and operators of those programs. 'Several communities across the state are interested in providing comprehensive harm reduction programming that includes overdose prevention centers, but legislation is needed to establish the legal and regulatory framework for us to do so successfully,' Gaeta said. 'Municipalities need to know the state will not stand in the way of local evidence-based public health efforts. Providers need to know that working in an [overdose prevention center] will not jeopardize our professional license. Participants need to know they will not go to jail for getting help.' Lawmakers over the years have hesitated to embrace the concept in the face of threats of federal prosecution, and that dynamic might come into play again. U.S. Attorney Leah Foley, who took office in January, told reporters last month she would oppose efforts to open overdose prevention centers. 'Safe injection sites is a misnomer,' she said, according to WBUR. 'You do not assist someone who is struggling with addiction by aiding and abetting. I believe that whatever resources would go into such sites should be diverted instead to treatment, to actually help these people — not to try to kill them.' Doctors with the Mass. Medical Society outlined three other priorities for the 2025-2026 legislative term: reestablishing payment parity for telehealth services (H 1130 / S 763), reforming prior authorization by health insurers (H 1136, S 1403), and expanding access to primary care (H 1370, H 2537 and S 867). Rep. Greg Schwartz, who was a primary care physician before joining the Legislature and filed one of the primary care bills, said Massachusetts faces a 'real crisis' as new doctors flow toward other specialties. 'What turns them off from [primary care] is not the salary, it's the lack of support, and when I say support, I mean administrative support in the settings that they're practicing,' said Schwartz (D-Newton). 'So often, they're the ones who are doing the prior authorizations … doing the forms, filling out the late-night answering of messages. It's actually overwhelming, and as a seasoned plus-20-years veteran of primary care, I can tell you that it continues to be a major drag on these professionals who really are not the right people to be doing some of this administrative work.' His bill calls for at least 12% of total health care spending in the next four years to go toward primary care, and it would also craft a payment floor designed to ensure community health centers do not get paid less from commercial insurers than they do from MassHealth, according to a summary. Health care watchdogs have flagged issues in primary care. A report published in January by the Health Policy Commission found Massachusetts has one of the lowest shares of physicians working in primary care, and wait times in Boston for a new patient appointment for a physical are among the highest in the country. Gov. Maura Healey this year signaled an interest in shifting more resources 'to the front lines' of primary care, and her ability to get the Legislature on board with that push is shaping up as an issue to watch this session. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBC
26-03-2025
- Health
- CBC
Unclear when homelessness and addiction hubs will open in Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie
When Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones announced 18 new Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs on the eve of the provincial election, she said the goal was to have them be operational by April 1st, 2025. As that date nears, the agencies set to run two of the new HART hubs in northeastern Ontario say they are still waiting on the province to confirm funding and operational details. "We're still waiting for all the final documents from the province so that we can really move forward," says Tyler Campbell, director of children and social services for the City of Greater Sudbury. The municipality has been running a HART-like pilot project with 13 of the 300 or so individuals on its by-name list as it waits for provincial funding. A by-name list refers to people who are known to be experiencing homelessness in the community. These 13 people are currently being housed in a motel, but could move in the new Lorraine St. transitional project, where the HART hub is set to open, in the coming weeks. That building has enough room for 40 people, but Campbell says the city needs all the HART hub details before it can operate at full capacity. "It also depends how quickly [Health Sciences North] can ramp up their staffing," said Campbell. As for the HART hub set to open in Sault Ste. Marie, the Canadian Mental Health Association Algoma says they are also waiting for a formal funding letter from Ontario Health. CEO Lisa Case tells CBC they are continuing to "engage with core partners to provide updates and keep the implementation plan for HART Hub moving forward." Asked for an update on the opening of the hubs, Hannah Jensen, spokesperson for the Minister of Health, tells CBC there are different timelines depending on whether the hub is opening in a facility that offered supervised drug consumption services before Ontario passed new laws. Those rules banned the facilities if they are located within 200 meters of schools and daycares and prevent new ones from opening. "Nine transitioning HART hubs are opening on April 1st, as planned, ensuring there is no gap in mental health support when drug injection sites close on March 31st," writes Jensen in an email. She adds that the government hopes to open the remaining HART hubs, including those in Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, "as soon as possible." Opioid-related deaths increased in Sudbury after the end of supervised consumption April 1st will mark one year since supervised consumption services in Sudbury shut down while waiting on provincial funding. "The early data following the closure of the supervised consumption site suggested an increase in the number of opioid related deaths," said Rachelle Roy, a nurse with Public Health Sudbury and Districts. She adds, however, that more recent data is similar to the period that preceded the closure of the service, but that mortality rates won't capture the full effectiveness of the service in preventing opioid related deaths. "This data includes our entire service area," she said. "The impact of a supervised consumption site is primarily within a 1km radius of its location, so it's not expected to alter a city wide or district wide mortality statistics." The most recent preliminary data from the Office of the Chief Coroner's office suggests that, in most of 2024, the opioid mortality rates across the province decreased by 20 per cent compared to 2021 levels. This decrease has not been felt throughout the north, which remains the region most affected by the opioid crisis. For example, mortality rates in 2024 were three times higher than the provincial average in the Porcupine Health Unit area, which includes Timmins. That city has yet to hear back on its HART hub funding application.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Because he served humanity in many ways, the legacy of Dr. Silas Norman Jr. is felt today
'A driving force for diversity, fairness and compassion.' That is how many people described Dr. Silas Norman Jr. (May 25, 1941-July 17, 2015) during his lifetime. And a comprehensive study of Black history makers that impacted Detroit and beyond would not be complete without paying tribute to Norman, a former longtime faculty member at Wayne State University and so much more. During a purposeful life well lived, Norman's work as a civil rights activist in the 1960s led to the desegregation of city buses in his hometown of Augusta, Georgia. This followed a student protest led by Norman during his sophomore year at Paine College, also located in Augusta. Later, as a graduate student attending the University of Wisconsin, Norman returned to the South during the summer of 1964 to work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) Selma Literacy Project, in Alabama, which helped citizens pass voter registration tests that had been used to disenfranchise Black voters. But Norman was not done there, as he would become the director of SNCC's Alabama project and co-founder of the Poor People's Corporation, an initiative that helped sharecroppers start businesses when banks refused to lend them money. Then there were the many good works that Norman performed in metro Detroit after graduating from Wayne State University's School of Medicine in 1976. As a faculty member at Wayne State, Norman became an assistant professor of internal medicine and was later appointed assistant dean for admissions in 2003, and associate dean for admissions, diversity and inclusion in 2010. However, Norman, a past recipient of the 'Trailblazer Award' presented by Wayne State's School of Medicine, often extended his service to reach people in need off campus, too. A few examples include his service as a physician to the State of Michigan Prison System, where Norman delivered the highest standard of care to inmates and staff; serving as a consultant to the Detroit Health Care for the Homeless project, and chairing the Detroit-based Community Health Awareness Group, Inc. And the impact of Norman's life can still be felt today in metro Detroit, particularly through the Black United Fund (BUF) of Michigan's Future Docs for Tomorrow: Silas Norman Medical Scholars (SINORMS) Academy, which also demonstrates how Norman often converted words into meaningful actions. 'The program began with conversations that took place between Dr. Norman and Ruth Smith at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church for an extended period of time,' explained Dr. Linda Cobb-McClain, program director for BUF of Michigan. 'They identified the need to introduce and expose Black youths to the medical field at a younger age — before high school.' On Thursday afternoon, BUF of Michigan President and CEO Kenneth Donaldson took pride in explaining how the program supports the overall mission of his nonprofit, which is celebrating its 55th anniversary. "SINORMS is indeed a shining example of why the Black United Fund of Michigan made the crucial decision to refocus its mission in 2016,' Donaldson said about the program that also has received volunteer assistance from Norman's sons — Dr. Silas Norman III and Michael Norman, an attorney. 'Empowering underrepresented and underserved youth is not simply a noble goal, it is an investment in our future. And through SINORMS, we are equipping and nurturing the next generation of doctors, scientists and medical technicians.' Donaldson's words are already beginning to come to life through students like Adanna Nwamba, one of the earliest SINORMS participants when the program was launched in 2019. Today, Nwamba is a freshman at Wayne State University and a recipient of the Wayne Med-Direct scholarship, which covers full tuition and fees in both undergraduate and medical school years and on-campus room and board during the undergraduate years. More Detroit Is ... The legacy of Detroit Memorial Park lives on through history it has made and preserved 'My mom made sure I was involved in a lot of programs, but the BUF program was one of the only programs that focused on younger students,' said Nwamba, an aspiring pediatrician and a 2024 graduate of Cass Technical High School, who spoke Thursday in between classes on the campus of Wayne State, where she had a 4.0 grade point average during the fall semester. 'The main thing about the program was the support and networking, which gave you a chance to shadow a physician as an eighth or ninth grader. 'Youths are often neglected or limited, but to have the opportunity to exceed those boundaries because people believe in you just makes me feel really happy.' And 'happy' would describe the mood of Alice McAlister Tillman on Thursday when asked to reflect on the enduring legacy of Norman, someone Tillman had the chance to admire through his passionate involvement in several arenas, including the arts, as a member of the nationally renowned Brazeal Dennard Chorale. 'Dr. Norman was an extraordinary person on so many levels. And his rich, resonate, profoundly deep bass voice was memorizing and simply the gold standard as he performed in the bass section of the Chorale alongside his bass brothers,' recalled Tillman, a versatile and celebrated soprano in her own right, who today is the artistic director of the Brazeal Dennard Chorale. 'Silas also utilized his voice as an orator and was the narrator in Adolphus Hailstork's 'Done Made My Vow' performed by the Brazeal Dennard Chorale and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra during a Classical Roots concert presentation.' Tillman says Norman's desire to help and inspire young people equaled the power of his musical performances, just in a different way. 'Silas was a very humble man, but he had an incredible love for young people and dedicated himself to them,' Tillman said about Norman, who also was an older brother of the late world-famous opera singer Jessye Norman. 'People used to ask Silas when he was going to retire (from Wayne State) and he would always say, 'I have to get this next class through.' He was totally committed to helping young people and his voice and his actions live on.' Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and a lifelong lover of Detroit culture in its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city's neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at stalley@ or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: The legacy of Dr. Silas Norman continues to touch Detroit youths today
