A safe site for people who use drugs

Creating a place where people are able to just bring their whole selves is really the core of harm reduction.”

Kieran Cirone

Audio

Southside Harm Reduction Services opens daytime Community Hub, the first of its kind_Allie Johnson.mp3

A new safe site for people who use drugs to connect with critical, often life-saving services is now open in south Minneapolis.
Since 2017, Southside Harm Reduction Services has been operating a mobile program, where volunteers deliver supplies like sterile syringes, clean pipes, and overdose prevention tools like Narcan so that people who use drugs can do so safely and reduce the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C in the community. Now, the organization also has a permanent location.
Southside Harm Reduction Services’ Community Hub is located at 810 East Franklin Avenue in the Phillips Neighborhood, across from Peavey Park. It is a drop-in center, where people who use drugs can pick up those same safe use supplies, and get access to medical care and substance use treatment. It also provides a safe and supportive space for people struggling with addiction to spend time during the day, said Kieran Cirone, a program manager with SHRS who runs the Community Hub.
“There are so few spaces in the Twin Cities where people who use drugs and people are experiencing houselessness are able to be present without being policed or removed or judged or expected certain behaviors of them,” Cirone said. “Creating a place where people are able to just bring their whole selves is really the core of harm reduction.”
Cirone said the Community Hub also allows SHRS to offer a new program in the form of harm-reduction counseling, where trained staff talk with people who drop in about their substance use and other factors in their life that may be causing issues or stress.
“We help them come up with a way to cope,” she said.
The drop-in center also has community partners like the Native American Community Clinic and Avivo on site each day to help people who use drugs navigate finding housing and healthcare in their community, Cirone said.
SHRS will continue its mobile programming, including its delivery and street outreach services. But the drop-in center, the only such site in south Minneapolis, provides a new way to reach people in the community and provide support.
“It’s a natural expansion of our mobile programming to have this: A grounded place where people could always know we were gonna be and always be able to gather,” said Cirone.
Cirone said it has been busier than expected, with between 40 and 60 people stopping by the Community Hub each day that it is open. Many are repeat visitors.
“We’re getting to know our core base of people, that’s for sure,” she said.
Cirone said the Community Hub has received a warm reception from the neighborhood.
“I’m sure people have criticisms, but we’re not hearing it ourselves for the most part,” she said. “Even people who aren’t interested in the resources that we have are glad that the people who need them can have them.”
The Community Hub is currently open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with plans to expand to four days a week by winter.