What Harm Reduction Really Looks Like
February 27, 2025 at 12:42AMIn this essay for The Nation copublished with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, photojournalist Tim Evans spent time over six months documenting the work of Southside Harm Reduction Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He followed members of the team who routinely visit unhoused people to distribute food, clothing, fentanyl test strips, wound care kits, and much more. After witnessing encampment sweeps where city workers tore down tents and disposed of any unpacked items, he describes the “familiar cycle of dispossession, displacement, and subsequent spikes in overdose risks” that plague the addicted and unhoused in the community.
While many Twin Cities harm reduction providers extend support to the community at large, needs vary considerably across the population. Social determinants of health—such as race, wealth, and the strength of one’s social networks—afford a degree of stability that can help insulate substance users against the vulnerabilities faced by those also coping with poverty, criminalization, racial disparities, and homelessness. Unhoused folks indeed feel these dynamics acutely, as they’re approximately six times as likely to die from overdose than those who are low-income and housed. What’s more, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2024 single-night count of unhoused individuals saw an 18 percent year-over-year increase in the number of people without housing. The result is a deepening, intersectional co-crisis between overdoses and homelessness.
“The quality of life of folx who use drugs and are living outside [is not] a priority in our city today,” (Angela) Richards explained. “I’m able to relate to people and meet them where they’re at because of what I went through. And I’m not far removed. I’m just housed. I’m just in my own form of recovery.” As Richards’s comments underscore, the line between housed and unhoused or addiction and recovery is often thin. For many, the difference can be as simple as a few missed paychecks or a stressful life event, and a recognition of that reality is ever-present among those providing services on the front lines.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/02/26/what-harm-reduction-really-looks-like/
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