Jenni asks Lucinda Jackson, Kati Moulton, Dot Jager-Wentworth, Tamar Shirley…
HACHR/SEP
Please describe what actions you have taken/will take to improve support for evidence based harm reduction programs like HACHR in Eureka? Do you support the city’s recent action against HACHR? If so, please explain how exactly that action does anything to support community needs, and justify EPD spending 7 months on this? If you do not support the city’s recent action, what steps would you take to build apa strongerwstronger HACHR or a new SEP/harm reduction program?
— Jenni
Responses
Lucinda Jackson
Homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness are series issues facing Eureka. Below is my position on homelessness and rehabilitation.
HOMELESSNESS AND REHABILITATION
Issues
· The City of Eureka has a swelling homeless population overtaken by addiction and mental illness.
· The City of Eureka does not enforce law and order for the homeless population, but instead implements a catch and release program.
· The City of Eureka funds ineffective public services and programs that fosters drug addiction and mental illness, and overwhelms programs and services beyond capacity.
Solutions
· Develop a conditional social services model that requires sobriety and regular drug testing, job coaching and employment programs, and ongoing monitoring.
· Develop a conditional program and service model that immediately discontinues providing illicit narcotics to drug addicts, invests in necessary psychological treatment for the mentally ill, and requires mandatory drug rehabilitation for repeat drug offense offenders.
· Work with community partners (such as Redwood Teen & Adult Challenge, Eureka Rescue Mission, and New Directions) that strive to restore the mind, body, and spirit to increase long-term drug rehabilitation program capacity and enable people to become contributing members of our community.
· Enforce law and order for criminal offenses.
For more information about root issues Eureka is facing, please visit my website at https://lucindajacksonekacitycouncil.squarespace.com/rootissues. .
Kati Moulton
When I was working as a community health outreach worker with the RAVEN Project, we would use harm reduction strategies to help prevent the spread of disease. We couldn’t pass out needles, but we did distribute clean shooting kits to needle drug users, and safer sex supplies to sex workers. This harm reduction work required absolute trust from the people engaging in risky behaviors as well as law enforcement. The idea that outreach workers and the RAVEN house had to be completely beyond suspicion was built into the culture of the organization from bottom to top. “Not here!” was the boundary that made our work possible.
Our services were so valuable to the clients we served that they in turn would protect RAVEN from risk or suspicion. When we would hire kids off the streets as peer educators, they would help to ensure through their social networks that clients were respecting and protecting the boundaries we’d set.
RAVEN staff would regularly engage with law enforcement, and would even be called on by the EPD to help find missing people or connect young adults with resources to keep them out of trouble. One day, a cop literally drove a kid to our door, and said “Go hang out with these people. They will feed you, so you don’t have to deal with those thugs.” I don’t know who the thugs were, but I do know we ended up hiring that kid, and helping him get into school.
Was the HACHR program as vigilant? I don’t know. They obviously didn’t have the trust of EPD, and have lost the support of most of the City Council through non-engagement.
Harm reduction works. It has been proven again and again. It is also difficult to do. I believe Eureka does need a needle exchange. When people can’t get clean needles, they don’t suddenly become not addicted … they just use dirty needles. Then HIV, HepC, and other preventable diseases spread around our community putting strain on our healthcare system and social safety nets. We need to keep working to make it work. Whether that means a mobile exchange model, or something else, we need to keep trying. No one can get clean if they are dead.
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