In Toronto’s downtown eastside, Moss Park’s encampment is home to a lot of people with deep ties to the neighbourhood. The site of the city’s first overdose prevention facility—a hard-won resource that started in an unsanctioned trailer—Moss Park’s residents are used to claiming space and fighting for what they need.

Relationships are important in every encampment. And in Moss Park, people go way back, but while blood may be thicker than water...you can’t drink blood. And the city isn’t delivering water.

On two days of a July heatwave, residents walk us through life in the park and share strategies for living in a pandemic without access to life’s most vital resource. 

Podcast art by Micheal DeForge. Theme music by Jeremy Costello & scoring by Jesse Perlstein. Featured photo of Derrick Black by Jeff Bierk.