This story is part of Confronting Crisis, a new series from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador exploring life on the front lines of community work. We’re sharing the stories of people falling through the cracks, and those fighting to catch them.
Sarah Pomeroy keeps a list of people she’s lost to drug use. It’s running past three pages now, and she believes her name would have made it if she hadn’t moved out of St. John’s.
Pomeroy’s brush with substances started in 2018, working as a crane operator on the Muskrat Falls megaproject. Cocaine is typically the drug of choice among tradesworkers because it exits the body in a matter of days, making it easier to pass mandatory drug tests, she said.
After Muskrat, she and her partner Mark Pittman entered a private rehab facility.
“We got sober for just over a year, and then COVID hit,” said Pomeroy.
That’s when the cycle of homelessness and crime ran its course.
