Overdose prevention centers are tough sell in U.S. despite successes

Safehouse countersued, saying such a ban violates the religious freedom of board members who believe they have a calling to “provide lifesaving medical treatment to a vulnerable population.” The Biden administration, the first to embrace harm reduction strategies, has stopped short of endorsing such prevention sites. Settlement talks between the Justice Department and Safehouse have dragged on for over a year.

Sonja Bingham, a community activist from Philadelphia’s Harrowgate neighborhood, said residents are tired of drug users from nearby Kensington defecating on the streets, discarding needles and breaking into properties. She said she believes an overdose prevention center will bring more users and drug dealers.“You can have your addiction, but you don’t have the right to impede on my quality of life,” said Bingham, president of the Friends of Harrowgate Park, one of the groups asking to intervene.

Right now, the only government-approved safe consumption program is run by the nonprofit OnPoint NYC, which operates two facilities: one in East Harlem, the other in Washington Heights. The program connects participants to addiction and mental health treatment, job training and social services. Since opening in late 2021, over 3,200 participants have used the sites, with staff intervening in 898 overdoses — with no deaths. Staff members also have collected 1.

Participants were served nearly 100,000 meals, and they also got showers, laundry, wound care and referrals to treatment and therapy. Other communities aren’t waiting to make such spending decisions. In Somerville, Mass., a largely blue-collar community just north of Cambridge, the city council allocated $827,000 for site preparation, construction and the purchase of a prefabricated building for such a center,

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