New location, same demand

Three weeks after a Spokane needle exchange program for drug users was forced to relocate, one of the biggest questions about the move has been answered.

Organizers were worried that clients of the Outreach Center on First Avenue might not find the new site or might not use services if they were offered in an office in the Spokane Regional Health District building at 1101 W. College Ave.

But that hasn’t proven true, said Lynn Everson, the public health worker who runs the program that prevents disease by swapping dirty hypodermic needles for clean ones.

“Our clients are remarkably resilient,” she said. “The answer is yes, they are finding us.”

There have been a few slow days, to be sure, since the relocation of the program that also offers free condoms, HIV treatment supplies, education and referrals – as well as clean socks and the occasional cookie.

But there were slow days, too, at the old site. Everson is seeing between 10 and 40 people a day during the weekday sessions of the needle exchange program. On a recent afternoon, staffers exchanged 5,555 needles in two hours, Everson said. The record is 6,004.

Letting drug users know they can still get clean needles and other supplies is essential to preventing the spread of disease, especially Hepatitis C and HIV, Everson said.

Users themselves are acutely aware of that need, and grateful for the service, said a 39-year-old woman who called herself Jo.

“I’ve always been a real stickler about not letting anybody use my water, or my spoons, or anything,” she said. “Nobody shares anything anymore.”

Jo said she’d been swapping needles at the exchange program for about 10 years.

“I did get clean twice,” she said. “But, you know.”

Another client, Janie, who turned 52 on Friday, said she’d been coming to the Outreach Center for a couple years because Everson and the others “treat you good.”

The goal of the center is not to encourage drug abuse, nor to perpetuate the problem, although those are common criticisms. The aim is to make sure that if people are going to use drugs, they do so in a way that doesn’t create a public health crisis on top of a social crisis, Everson said. Cost for the program, which serves some 2,000 individual clients a year, is about $137,000 annually.

“I really, really hope we’ll be able to keep people coming and help them be safe,” she said.

So far, there’s little chance that clients won’t know where to go. The distinctive domed Health District building can be seen for miles, noted Jo.

“It’s a landmark building,” she said. “You can’t miss it.”

Several clients – and workers – actually prefer the new digs to the old site with its variable plumbing and excess of pigeon droppings. While Everson’s not eager to move again, she would consider any offer of a location convenient to downtown Spokane.

Until then, clients like Jo are simply grateful that the program survived gentrification of one of Spokane’s seediest neighborhoods.

“It takes a lot to want to help people,” she said. “Especially people nobody wants to help.”