Editor’s note: This photo series was published as part of a project from journalists Celeste Hamilton Dennis and Florence Middleton about harm reduction doulas and the parents they work with. Story subject Livia Perkins contributed handwritten reflections to this series. It was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.
Livia Perkins was dressed in a classic red, polka-dotted dress with perfectly curled hair as we climbed over a freeway overpass guardrail. We were looking for the spot where she had lived the year before. We walked down a steep dirt path—her dress catching on brambles—until we reached the edge. The freeway loomed about 20 feet below us as we hunched over to peered into the dark crawl space beneath the overpass. The sound of traffic was deafening. Could this be where she had slept on a wooden pallet while pregnant, navigating substance use and immobilized by a degenerative hip condition? Livia, usually boisterous, was quiet, processing what she experienced in this place.
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