Rebuilding a Safe Haven for Future Crises

At Intercambios Puerto Rico, we are happy to share with you our progress over the last three months as continue to provide support to the homelessindividuals and problematic substance users in the northeast of Puerto Rico. Our syringe exchange project has impacted the community by collecting and delivering clean syringes as well as other safe injection and personal hygiene items. We are currently providing these services in the 9 municipalities of the Northeast and we have recently added the town of Yabucoa. Between the months of August and October, 50,209 syringes were collected and 65,408 syringes were delivered to program participants. These data demonstrate the number of participants who have benefited from work focused on harm reduction and that has an impact on the well-being of the overall population. The syringe exchange project allows the reduction of transmission of HIV, hepatitis C and other bacteria that can be contracted due to not having safe injection equipment to use intravenous drugs. Also, we have managed to link participants to other social and medical programs such as medication-assisted treatment and primary health care.

In addition to the syringe exchange team is also accompanied by a nurse and a case manager provided individual case managing services to a total of 50 participants between the months of August to October 2019. This project has offered preventive services and liaison to other social organizations and primary medical care. A total of 50 rapid HIV tests have been performed on participants from the northeast area of Puerto Rico including the town of Yabucoa. It should be noted that our staff also participated in a health fair in the town of Loíza aimed at people with problematic substance use and the community in general. We specially want to highlight the addition to our organization of a crisis/emergency coordinator with a social work background who has undertaken the development of an emergency protocol in the face of atmospheric phenomena such as hurricanes and floods and coordination with municipal emergency offices to ensure addecuate attention to the population we serve.  This is project was made possible thanks to the contribution of Globalgiving.com and is allowed us to better prepare in the event of future natural disasters as an organization and to help our community navigate its aftermath.

Finally, our GBHI team funded by SAMHSA is working in the community and offering psychosocial services to homeless individuals with problematic substance use and mental health disorders. Several communities in the municipality of San Juan have been impacted and we have begun to provide services in the town of Humacao. The team consisting of a mental health counselor, a substance counselor, a community outreach worker and a case manager have directly supported a total of 30 participants from August to October 2019. These services are based on providing counseling once a week, support with peers and link to different services according to the needs identified until obtaining permanent housing for this population. It should be noted that participants have been linked to medication-assisted treatment, primary medical care and mental health treatment.

Our entire team appreciates the support you provided us to continue the projects in the communities affected by the lack of access to services related to human rights.  This work would not be possible without the support of people like you and we hope you continue to be our partners in bringing about social change and justice for our communities! Thank you!

In the past three months, our team at Intercambios Puerto Rico has continued its mission to provide life saving harm reduction services to vulnerable populations in the eastern side of the island of Puerto Rico. Life in the island has slowly recovered a sense of normalcy after two years of post-recovery work, however life continues to be a struggle for those who live in the streets and who have problematic use of illegal substances. Puerto Rico has in the last two year witness the implementation of a myriad of austerity measures imposed by a fiscal oversight board, whose priorities have been to recoup monies for the island’s creditors and has continuously disregarded the consequences such measures are having on the island essential services such as health and social welfare among others. These have simply created a greater vacuum of services for those most disenfranchised groups, including homeless and drug users. Most recently the island has been the object of much press coverage as evidence of rampant corruption and disregard for the wealth being of its citizens was revealed in a series of social media scandals. This evidence prompted a level of local outraged and protest never seen before in Puerto Rico. The island and its people are ready to see a new way of doing things and are tired of the same old political and social discourses.

This is a time where exciting ideas are gaining momentum and local citizens are wanting to seek social justice in many areas. Intercambios’ work and vision for social justice for marginalized communities has the potential to gain track in this new and exciting context where every week people are getting together in different municipalities across the island to map out their vision of a future for Puerto Rico that is steered by the people and for the people. At this historic moment, Intercambios is gearing to become a stronger voice and advocate for a harm reduction approach to mental and physical health for marginalized communities and offered up an agenda for how to attend to homeless and drug user community not only in times of crisis but in regular times. In order to do so, our team is working hard to hire a social worker with experience in dealing with crisis and disaster preparation that will advocate and work closely with municipal governments to ensure their crisis preparedness protocols include measures that specifically attend to homeless and drug using individuals’ needs in times of crisis and natural disasters. This new team member will also be working with our clients to help navigate obstacles that they may still have related to Hurricane Maria and Irma aftermath. It is our understanding that no other organization in the island serving these populations is working to develop crisis preparedness protocols, capacity and kits for its participants, as we are. We are not satisfied with simply covering immediate needs and always work to develop individuals’ capacity as well as expand services and infrastructure as our resources allow, in order to provide a wholistic harm reduction approach to improving our participants’ and their communities’ lives.

We also continue to provide sterile injecting equipment, rapid HIV testing, nursing assessments and referrals to permanent housing for homeless individuals, motivational interviewing and referrals to treatment for problematic drug use for individuals who request it. Among the projects down our pipeline are to be able to set up a mobile clinic with access to a medical doctor, Hepatitis C testing and treatment, and ambulatory drug treatment assisted with Buprenorphine/Suboxone for opioid users.

Our team is excited about what the future holds for us, and we hope you are too and continue to be our partners. Our work would not be possible, were it not for social justice minded individuals like yourselves who believe a better and more just world is possible. Everyday we invest ourselves in the belief that every single effort helps make someone’s life more meaningful and has a ripple effect onto the communities we live in. Help us continue to demonstrate that it is possible to approach drug use and homelessness in a different way that is cost-effective, humane and socially just.