Los Angeles programs that help drug users await fate during the Trump era

Samsun Tafallo finally read 119.

For 45 minutes, he pulled a cart full of miniature water, cannabis cigarettes and various cleaning products around Skid Row, distributing supplies and maintaining a balance for each person who served in his usual way.

Tafulu and other leaders in the pavement project, which is not a profitable a few buildings, do their tours several times a week. He said that the count has become a large part of the task, as the numbers are reported in grants.

With the changing political climate, their financing suddenly is in danger.

The sidewalk project is one of the many groups that provide resources for homeless people, including some supplies specifically directed towards drug users, such as sterile syringes. Despite the credit by the defenders of saving lives during the opioid epidemic, the programs are still controversial, as critics argue that they are strengthening addiction.

The leaders of similar organizations throughout the state are concerned that the recent pledges by the Trump administration to reduce federal spending and reduce repetition in government agencies will have long -term repercussions for their work.

“It is just a fear,” Tafulo said of the unconfirmed future during the Trump era. “It keeps us on the fingers.”

Federal health officials He said On Friday, which reduces HIV prevention efforts, a major component in many damage programs, is already under implementation.

“It is definitely a different level of threat from the usual,” said Elie Galleer, director of damage to Bienestar Human Services, who provides HIV and treatment virus testing as well as exchanging injection.

Gallere said that the Los Angeles Ministry of Health was vocal for its continuous support for damage to damage, but federal financing currents are more dangerous.

In San Francisco, mayor Daniel Lori has He pledged to restructure the displacement services in the city A closer look at the effectiveness of non -profit organizations funded by the city, including those that provide supplies to drug users.

“The days of delivery of things, no accountability – that have ended,” Lori told a news conference.

Last year, the pavement project was passed for a grant due to questions about the injection service program, said Soma Snakeoil, co -founder of the founder and executive director of profit organizations. In 2023, the program was managed by more than 267,000 sterile syringes and collected more than 53,000 synonyms of SKID ROW and Macarthur Park, according to an analysis analysis by an external authority research company.

Snakeoil said: “When you always do in a way that shows you successful, you imagine that you will be recovered,” Snakeoil said. “But they said they move in a different direction.”

Snakeoil said this shift tends to increase the focus on treatment and less damage. She and others have warned that the limitation of injection programs may have serious public health consequences.

Federal officials said Wall Street Journal Earlier this month, the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services is considering moving the division of the Center for Disease Control in HIV under a different agency – or completely eliminating the division.

Timothy Zimbec, director of a damage program in being alive, a non -profit organization for HIV services, said any of the move will restore decades of progress and will be “devastating to our efforts to end the HIV.”

Local officials are preparing for overwhelming discounts for research and prevention in the event of a stopping center for diseases.

Sherrill Barrett, Executive Director of the Los Angeles HIV province, said that her colleagues – 33 % of them live with HIV – feel nervous.

“There is a deep feeling of anxiety and anxiety about what the current situation holds in the near future,” said Barrett.

It has been shown that the programs that offer clean syringes for intravenous drug users prevent the spread of hepatitis and other pathogens transmitted by blood. But Barrett said that it seems that the decisions at the federal level are now taken “with what appears to be a lack of analysis, the lack of inputs of society and the lack of partnership with the stakeholders who are experts in this field.”

The Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services did not respond to requests from the afternoon.

The feeling of separation between what the government leaders believe will improve the results of public health and what local communities actually need is what fell Snakeoil and its co -founder of the Stacey Dee project in their working line.

Snakeoil said the group was initially established as an art and music program. I only continued to turn into the damage organization, as soon as I realized, “We were the right people in doing this work because of our experience of drug use.”

This living experience also shares many sidewalk employees.

One of the main pieces in reducing the damage is that it enables and encourages illegal drug use. But some of the pavement employees who turned their lives around them said they wish they could reach services like them when they were on the street.

Crushow Herring, which heads the Sidewalk’s Community Ambassador program, is used to selling drugs and living in Skid Row. He stopped dealing in 2006 when his son was born, and he drew a mural in his old sale.

When Hering tours the neighborhood with his team on Wednesday in late March, he stopped in every bloc to greet the old friends.

“We are like beacons,” he said. “When you take water, you need a beacon.”

While Hering cleared supplies, he directed new beneficiaries to Sidewalk on Stanford Avenue-a garage area that was renewed where unique and unique community can eat, rest and shop free stock of an overdose of Naluxon drugs, acute tool containers and other first and huge supply requirements.

There, the regular sidewalk Michel Ortiz was tolerated on juice, oats and underwear.

She said that Ortz, who suffers from HIV, lived on a row of skiing for more than a decade. At that time, she was attacked and even gave birth to the street.

She said last year, Sidewalk Ortez helped move to the residential tower. The drug is still used from time to time – “I will not lie to you” – but less than it was, and it is now taking a drug for HIV.

Without the sidewalk, Ortz said, “I will not be here – it was different.”

Despite the testimony of people like Ortz, the tide appears to be against reducing damage. Last year, the pillar polling initiative last year is 36 harsh penalties for some drug crimes, and now the Trump administration is preparing for comprehensive changes.

Snakeoil note that “every aspect of our work on the list of almost banned terminology,” referring to the hundreds Federal employees were instructed to avoid.

Snakeoil said that some non -profit organizations are scrambling to change their organizational language to secure federal financing, while others flee to the private sector.

For the snake, “it is difficult to see the road forward to sustainability”-especially when Trump and California officials feed the public interest in crime tactics.

“Many people have already lost his patience,” said Sebastian Perez, a state affairs specialist at APLA Health & Wellness, a non -profit organization that focuses on preventing excessive doses and diseases such as HIV.

As shown on the death of PROP 36, Perez said: “I think the audience is more willing to be a punishment at the present time.”

However, drug policy researchers have long been raised in drug use, not an evidence on evidence.

Peter Davidson, a professor at the University of California in San Diego, who studied the effectiveness of the so -called excess dose prevention sites, where medicines are used under the supervision of workers to reduce damage and medical professionals, said the current system puts people to fail.

“We give them criminal records,” Davidson said. “Then we expect them to resign in one way or another using drugs.”

At the same time, research indicates those who use injection exchange programs they are More vulnerable to treatmentHe said.

Those who go to Skid Row are still worried that they will lose some of the only good they see being in their neighborhood.

“I am afraid that Trump wants to close all this,” said the resident Alvaro Rodriguez while he was in the pavement supplies.

While he was walking far away, Rodriguez grabbed a pair of outdated training books – in it, he planned to remove himself and his neighbors from the street.