Yes and it goes beyond homelessness and crime. Social services, never built to handle an epidemic like this, are overrun. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/20

Yes and it goes beyond homelessness and crime. Social services, never built to handle an epidemic like this, are overrun. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/17/ohio-drugs-child-protection-workers https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/17/ohio-drugs-c... Hospitals are ill-equipped to handle addicts and the tangled web of birth, opiates, and crime that comes with it. The result: kids die. http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/baby-opioids/ http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/baby-opio... The mere aspect of caring for a child born with what they call neonatal abstinence syndrome e.g. babies addicted to opiates is too much for the current system. Lily's Place in West Virginia is one response, but it's a drop in the national bucket. http://wvpublic.org/post/lilys-place-continuing-care-addicted-babies#stream/0 http://wvpublic.org/post/lilys-place-continuing-care-addicte... Now picture a school in a community overrun by this trying to contend with children born addicted to opiates, and parents who merely shrug when social services takes their children away. Portsmouth, Ohio is one that has been hard hit by the opioid epidemic. There is no safety net for this sort of thing, and it's crushing the institutions that it touches while wrecking the community. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/17/drugs-opiod-addiction-epidemic-portsmouth-ohio https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/17/drugs-opiod-... I can feel the anger in this post but please know it's not directed at you or HN. I see this up close and the hopelessness of it all, makes me feel impotent to meaningfully help, and subsequently, angry.