MARCH 2 - 15, 2018 • VOL. 9 — NO. 5
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► Democratic candidates for governor stake out positions PAGE 4 ► Mayor, council debate emergency response times PAGE 14
Coping with a Crisis: Opioid addiction in the suburbs EXCLUSIVE SERIES
Life after death: Families turn obituaries into protests against the stigma of addiction
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION | P15-21
City to form an affordable housing task force BY DYANA BAGBY dyanabagby@reporternewspapers.net
MAX BLAU
Larry and Peggy Lord display a childhood photo of their sons Ashby and Hunter. Ashby, at right, died of a heroin overdose last year.
BY MAX BLAU
O
n a Sunday afternoon last April, the moment Larry Lord had dreaded for roughly two decades finally happened. His wife, Peggy, found their 35-year-old son Ashby no longer breathing in the basement of their ranch home on Sandy Springs’ Mount Paran Road. She tried performing CPR and called 911. But nothing the paramedics did could revive Ashby after a heroin overdose. Larry was devastated. Like many family members after a death, he faced the task of writing an obituary so that newspapers and the funeral home could inform their loved ones. Larry, an architect, considered himself a problem-solver.
First of a 4-Part Series The combination of prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids is killing people around the nation, including within Reporter Newspapers communities. In this exclusive four-part series, we will look at how local families, nurses, prosecutors, recovering addicts and others are responding to a growing epidemic that already kills more people than cars, guns or breast cancer each year. To share your thoughts and stories, email editor@reporternewspapers.net
A doctor’s overview of the opioid crisis. See Commentary, page 10 ► Usually, he could sketch out new doors or windows to make design problems disappear. He’d written obituaries, too,
most recently for his first wife and Ashby’s mother, Shannon, after she died from complications of cancer. But the circumstances of Ashby’s life posed difficult questions in how to talk about his death. Euphemisms are a tradition of sorts for overdose victims. Their obituaries say that they left this world or entered eternal rest while glossing over how it happened. The reasons vary from not speaking ill of the dead to a fear that it might reflect poorly on the living. “For many years, you never saw the word ‘addiction’ in an obit,” says Dr. Frances Levin, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University Medical Center. “That’s because of the stigma related to Continued on page 8
The city will create a task force to study workforce housing in the wake of similar efforts in neighboring cities, despite strong opposition from the mayor and some City Council members. Four councilmembers — Lynn Deutsch, John Heneghan, Pam Tallmadge and Tom Lambert — agreed at the council’s Feb. 15 retreat the city should create the task force. Among the items the task force will look at are ideas that have been pitched in Brookhaven, Sandy Springs and other metro Atlanta cities on ways to ensure affordable housing options are available. Who will serve on the task force and when it will be created remains to be seen, according to Mayor Denis Shortal. During a presentation at the council retreat, workforce housing was defined as being 80 percent of the area median income. It can also be defined by profession, such as teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, construction workers and retail workers. “I’m concerned about redevelopment ... of certain properties and when that happens See CITY on page 12
Residents discuss Peachtree Industrial’s future BY EVELYN ANDREWS evelyn@reporternewspapers.net
Residents at a community meeting said they would like to see more trails, green space and senior housing near Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Dunwoody, but are torn on how to address aging apartment complexes that are home to diverse, lower-income residents. Residents provided input Feb. 27 on what development they would like to see in the Peachtree Industrial Boulevard area from I-285 to Winters Chapel Road. See RESIDENTS on page 13