Outreach workers face high burnout rates due to toxic drug crisis: UGM

Harold Melbourne, an outreach worker who spends his days bearing witness, is on the front lines of B.C.'s toxic drug crisis.

“The drugs that are out there are so powerful and so addictive,” he said.

Melbourne understands. He struggled with addiction, and used to be homeless, living on the Downtown Eastside after his marriage fell apart.

“I ended up self-destructing completely,” he said. “Burning everything to the ground.”

He still remembers the moment it all changed, after overdosing alone in his room.

“In the blackness and in the oblivion, I heard 'Get up,'" he recalled. “I opened my eyes and I was face down in the carpet. I know if it wasn’t for that voice I heard, I would have been a statistic.”

Melbourne is now an outreach worker at Union Gospel Mission. He went through UGM’s detox program, then into treatment. From there he did an internship where he was eventually hired at the charity.

The 61-year-old spends his days connecting with people in the community, and saving lives. Melbourne sees himself in many of the people he interacts with – and knows it’s his strength.

But nothing about this work is easy.

Outreach workers grappling with the toxic illicit drug crisis, face high burnout rates, according to Sarah Chew, a spokesperson with Union Gospel Mission.

Chew said the average length of employment for these workers at UGM is about two years due to stress, trauma, and loss.

“It’s hard work,” she said. “It takes a lot of resilience, a lot of grit.”

Eight years into the public health crisis, Chew said, outreach workers are consistently mourning community members.

“You see someone one day and the next day you don’t,” she said.

According to Chew, one family known to UGM lost numerous generations to the crisis.

“There was no relative left to bury an 18-year-old girl who also passed from overdose,” she said. “That’s the reality of what we’re facing right now.”

Melbourne said he refuses to lose hope.

“For myself, my resilience, I don’t dwell with the dead," he said. "I dwell with the living.”

Which is why every day, you’ll find him doing outreach in the community.

“Every life has value,” he said. “Every life has a story, and we can’t judge unless we walk in their shoes.”