RESPECT, DIGNITY AND LOVE FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER

The NY Recovery Alliance is a peer led, grassroots Harm Reduction organization dedicated to maintaining safe and secure communities for people struggling with Substance Use, and for those that love them.

We believe the syndemic of fatal overdose, disease, poverty, and homelessness is preventable. We are Human Rights advocates who provide Harm Reduction services and safe haven for those negatively impacted by Substance Use Disorder.

In 2024, we will be focused on:

1. Love and Power: Creating safe spaces where people living with Substance Use Disorder (focusing on BIPOC, LGBTQI, people navigating Severe SUD, and people living in poverty) can experience dignified and respectful connection, have their voices heard, their needs met, and build more powerful communities.
2. Decreasing HIV and fatal overdose: Increasing Harm Reduction outreach in the 14621, Genesee-Jefferson and Monroe Ave neighborhoods to stop the spread of HIV and increase naloxone distribution among people who use drugs. Advocating for Overdose Prevention Centers. Working to increase participation of directly impacted people in HIV and OEND programs and policy. Advocating to expand drug checking.
3. Eliminating Hepatitis C (HCV): Preventing new HCV transmission by expanding access to sterile supplies while advocating for affordable, point of care confirmatory HCV testing to implement a “90 minute test to cure” cascade. Working to increase participation of directly impacted people in HCV programs and policy.
4. Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Education: Increasing awareness about the co-occurring causes and conditions that leave people more susceptible to Substance Use Disorder (SUD), such as trauma, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES), racialized criminalization, untreated mental health, and stigma.
5. Addressing syringe litter and public drug use: Advocating for Overdose Prevention Centers (OPC’s), which have been shown to reduce syringe litter by up to 80%. Advocating for Housing First as a proven response to reduce chronic homelessness. Reducing public backlash by educating the public officials and community members that there has NEVER been a case of HIV transmission from a community based accidental needle stick.
6. Treatment for mental illness and SSUD: Demand increased funding for community mental health centers, Harm Reduction programs and evidence based SUD treatment centers (particularly methadone and buprenorphine). We need low barrier/high retention, on-demand treatment for everyone.
7. Ending encampments: Assist people living in encampments. Advocate for low-barrier (no abstinence or mental health requirement) emergency shelters and long-term supportive Housing First initiatives. Drastically increase the construction of public housing. Build public restrooms. Advocate for the decommodification of housing.
8. Building alliances: Working with other organizations that amplify the voices of, and build power among, people living with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) who are impacted by racialized drug policies, disease, poverty, housing insecurity, and incarceration.
9. Policy changes: Educating and advocating to decriminalize personal possession of drugs, decriminalize possession of buprenorphine, legalizing and funding Overdose Prevention Centers, increase funding for the AIDS Institute Office of Drug User Health, facilitating quantitative and qualitative drug checking, and dismantling 150 years of racialized drug policies that engendered our syndemic of disease, overdose, incarceration and human rights abuses. Ensuring that punitive and harmful policies such as “Drug Induced Homicide” or the criminalization of Xylazine or Fentanyl do not become law.