Since January, Housing Works has been mobilizing repeatedly to demand that the New York City Mayor take decisive action to end overdose deaths resulting from our worsening opioid epidemic. So far, Mayor de Blasio has not done enough: 1,374 lives were lost in overdose deaths in 2016 in New York City. Someone dies of an overdose every seven hours in New York, with overdose now killing more people than traffic accidents, homicides, and suicides combined.
Too many people have died of overdoses, and Housing Works and our allies are saying NOT ONE MORE. Effective policies and interventions to combat this epidemic exist. Worldwide, not one life has been lost in over 100 supervised consumption sites (SCS). SCS takes an effective, harm-reduction approach to substance use, providing spaces where people can use pre-obtained drugs in a controlled environment with point-of-care support from staff trained to help participants to make their substance use safer, to prevent and respond to overdoses, and to provide linkage to health and supportive services. Nevertheless, Mayor de Blasio has continued to delay releasing the SCS Impact Study commissioned by the City Council in 2016, even though the report has been complete since December. NYC is now behind the curve on this issue, with Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, and Ithaca each taking bold action to make SCS facilities that will save lives a reality in their jurisdictions.
At a February 5 public hearing in Albany Mayor de Blasio publicly claimed he would release the SCS report “soon.” In the 70+ days that hav e passed since then, approximately 270 overdose deaths have taken place in New York City. Because of the Mayor’s inaction and silence, Housing Works and allies have been organizing escalating, repeated mobilizations, each attended by hundreds, during the past three months, most at City Hall.
