People First Radio – November 23, 2023People First Radio – November 23, 2023
People First Radio
Conversation with end-of-life doula Crystal Toop about her experiences of youth homelessness, grief, and Indigenous-led death care, and how these shaped her work with Blackbird Medicines. The discussion touches on addiction, hidden homelessness, and the importance of community support for both grieving families and frontline helpers.
0:00•28 Nov 2023
From Hidden Homelessness to Death Doula: Crystal Toop’s Path to Helping Others
Episode Overview
- Youth homelessness is often hidden, with many young people couch surfing and relying on informal networks rather than shelters.
- Street-involved youth create strong family-like bonds and their own ethics around mutual aid and panhandling.
- Grief comes in many forms, including anticipatory and complicated grief, and there is no single correct way to experience or express it.
- Families of people who misuse substances often live with ongoing grief and fear, and peer support spaces can be vital.
- Helpers and death doulas need consistent support and self-care practices to manage vicarious trauma and stay healthy in their work.
“There are so many more hidden homeless than the visible.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety, grief, and healing when life starts with so much stacked against them? This conversation on People First Radio follows that question through the life of end-of-life doula and Blackbird Medicines founder, Crystal Toop. Speaking with host Joe Pugh, Crystal shares how growing up with poverty, being labelled a “youth at risk,” and spending time as a homeless teenager in Thunder Bay shaped her.
She talks about the “invisible homelessness” of couch surfing and the strong bonds that formed among street-involved youth: “There are so many more hidden homeless than the visible… we were a family.” Her stories pull back the curtain on street life, including unspoken rules around panhandling, mutual protection, and the painful reality of exploitation dressed up as charity. The episode then shifts towards grief, death, and Indigenous wellness.
Crystal explains how losing her grandmother and later supporting her grandfather through cancer treatment drew her towards death doula work and traditional plant medicines. She breaks down different forms of grief—like anticipatory and complicated grief—and points out that “grief is messy, and it actually, for the most part, never actually ends,” offering language that many people dealing with addiction, overdose, or family estrangement may find familiar.
Crystal also talks about moving from birth work into death work, the heavy emotional load of supporting people through loss, and why helpers themselves need support. She describes how a small grant and a simple online mentorship snowballed into a large Indigenous death doula training programme, now offered free thanks to a provincial grant, with hundreds already trained.
If you’re interested in homelessness, addiction, Indigenous-led healing, or just trying to make sense of grief in your own life, this gentle, honest chat might give you a few ideas—and maybe a few questions—to sit with. Where might your own story of loss and survival be leading you next?
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