When Rhode Island became the first state to authorize safe injection sites, where people could use drugs under the supervision of medical staff, there was a catch: Lawmakers forbade the use of government funds to run the centers. Now the centers are legal, but foundations and individual donors haven’t provided nonprofits with enough cash to run them.
The idea that government money would be used to provide a place to inject drugs may have presented a problem for lawmakers. After all, the legislature also provides money for law-enforcement officials to track down and prosecute drug users. While approaches designed to keep drug users safe, like providing clean syringes, have caught on, actually providing a place to use drugs without risk of arrest is a much bigger change in approach.
With nothing in the state budget for the sites, the scramble is on for cash to run them. Proponents of safe injection sites say the drug epidemic has hit the state so severely that there is a lot of goodwill toward those who are trying new approaches. But that hasn’t translated into donor support.
In 2020, there were 420 overdose fatalities in the state, up from 384 the previous year. In a small state like Rhode Island, that means many people are just one degree of separation from a person or family who has been harmed by drug use, say nonprofit substance-use experts.
RICares, a nonprofit that advocated for the sites, last March opened an exhibit at its downtown Providence art gallery that lets people walk through a mock safe injection site. The exhibit included quotes from its executive director, Monica Smith, a methamphetamine user in recovery, about life as a user.
Showing How It Works
The exhibit, which received support from a local legal firm, complemented the public advocacy campaigns of RICares and other grassroots groups. It also enabled 75 legislators from Rhode Island and neighboring Massachusetts to experience what a safe injection site might be like without actually seeing people use drugs. The softer touch, suggests Smith, may have been more palatable to donors.
RICares considered opening a site, but Smith decided fundraising was too much of a challenge.
Another nonprofit that works with drug users, Victa Life, is trying to raise money to open a site but is having trouble generating interest from donors. It has received some in-kind commitments for real-estate and construction costs — but no promises of grant money to staff the site and pay for naloxone and other treatments.
In April, Victa Life participated in 401 Gives, a statewide giving campaign sponsored by the United Way of Rhode Island, and told potential donors that the funds would be used to open a site. Lisa Peterson, Victa Life’s chief operating officer, hoped the effort would raise about $200,000, but it only drew $12,000.
Peterson hopes she can persuade a corporate foundation or individual donor to make a large contribution, but she says she has been involved in harm reduction for so long that she sometimes forgets that providing clean drug-use paraphernalia and a safe, legal place to use can be scary to the uninitiated.
Navigating that as a fundraiser, she says, “is like a mine field.”
Reporting for this article was underwritten by a Lilly Endowment grant to enhance public understanding of philanthropy. See more about the grant and our gift-acceptance policy.
