A large white van slowly backs into a driveway in a Jessamine County neighborhood. On one side, in bright red, blue, and green colors, it says, ‘Everyone Matters, This is Public Health.’ Below, hands and arms of different colors reach upwards.
It’s as if the hands are reaching for help. And that’s exactly what the Jessamine County Health Department van and the people inside the van are offering.
The van is part of the health department’s Harm Reduction program. Shauna O’ Nan is the director.
“We go into the areas that are known for high substance use, high crime, and high overdose rates. The whole program is to reduce infectious diseases and help keep people alive, not passing away from overdoses.”
O’ Nan, like several members of her six-member Harm Reduction team, has a personal connection to drug addiction.
“As a person in recovery, I was going to use regardless, like there was nothing that was going to stop me from using. I don't care if I had a syringe or not; I would have picked one up off the street. It didn't matter. I would have done my best to clean it, but if I couldn't, it didn't matter, because that drive for that drug was so powerful.”
The effort to help people struggling with drug addiction and reduce overdose deaths is a team effort in Jessamine County. The health department partners with law enforcement, the detention center, and Shepherds House Recovery Community Center on Main Street in Nicholasville.
Kate Holway is the director at Shepherds House and just celebrated 37 years of sobriety. She’s in the Harm Reduction van along with Brittany Bray and Sara Beth Miller of the Jessamine County Health Department. The van’s side door is open so people can walk up to talk with the women.
In the back of the van, cabinets and shelves are packed with new syringes, first aid supplies, snacks, and hygiene products. Bray says an important part of their work is building relationships with people in need.
“They trust us with a lot, and so I think that's the most rewarding part of our job is being trusted, and they know that they can come to us with whatever.”
They don’t hand out money, but Holway says they offer a wide range of recovery services to help people rebuild their lives.
“When you have nothing, and you're going nowhere, navigating out the front door is overwhelming. And so, what we do is we meet people at the door, we give them a hug, we make them feel safe, we make them feel heard, we make them feel seen, and we give them a safe place to land. And then when we do that, we can start working on what they really need. When you got nothing, you need everything.”
In the last year, O’ Nan says the Jessamine County Health Department has given out 103,000 new syringes.
Some people might ask, doesn’t that promote drug use? O’ Nan says, “I hear that often. What we do here is we give them clean syringes, and then we build that relationship, and we start talking about alternate ways of living.”
In addition to the van’s outreach program, the Jessamine County Health Department has a clinic at its East Walnut Street location, which is open each weekday.
People can walk up to the counter and join the Syringe Exchange Program. Participants are given a code to keep track of their use and must bring in a used syringe for each new one they receive. That keeps people from throwing the used syringes on the streets.
O’ Nan says, “We encourage them to implement safer (drug) using strategies. We want them to understand that cleaning a syringe is not enough. It can still spread diseases; every time that they inject, even on themselves, they need to use a clean syringe. That is where we start building that relationship. As we build trust and create rapport, when that individual starts to need things, they'll come, and they'll start conversations. And then we're able to connect them with food resources; we can connect them with medical care, transportation, driver's license, IDs, all these things that they're going to need to live a life outside of substance use. And so that window is that point of contact.”
Nearby at the Jessamine County Detention Center, Robert Barbosa is the Reentry Coordinator. He’s also recovering from drug addiction.
“A lot of the men I grew up with here, a lot of the men I've run the streets with here, and they've seen me transform my life, and that gives them hope and courage that they can do the same thing.”
He’s amazed by the dedication of Holway, O’ Nan, Bray, and others who are in the trenches to save and rebuild lives torn apart by addiction.
“They mentor them. They're there for them. They go to bat for them in their court cases, not unless they're actually doing the work themselves. Let me clarify that. Our motto here is we're about empowerment, not enablement. Like, we will walk through the fire with you, but we're not going to walk through the fire for you, right?”
Holway and Natasha Whitlock on the Harm Reduction team offer classes in jail for women.
Whitlock says, “We do seven classes and go over basic, fundamental things, like why do you want recovery? Do you want the broad path? Do you want the narrow? So, I talk about the 3 Ps: pause, process, and proceed. When you take the pause, it gives you a choice. So, it's not an automatic reaction. It's relearning those thought patterns, like instead of how you always thought, believed, how you reacted to something, take that pause, and then you have your power back, your choice. You get to choose how to do your next steps.”
A block away on Main Street in Nicholasville, the doors are open for help at the Shepherds House Recovery Community Center. Holway says they meet desperate people who have alienated everyone in their life.
“When you come in here, man, you are usually at the last house on the block, and you have exasperated everything. Your family doesn't want you, your friends don't want you, you've wreaked havoc. Most people have lost everything. Some people chase it into the gates of insanity. I got lucky. I got somebody that told me the truth and held me accountable, and that changed my life.”
Holway has lost count of the funerals she’s gone to. She and the rest of the people in this story are on a mission to change and save lives.
“All this is unconditional love. I don't care where you go, where you've been, what you did, who you did it with, or what. The only thing that I care about is when you walk through this door, we meet you with a cup of coffee. You feel safe, and when you walk out of here, you're better than you came in.”
What would she like the public to understand about people fighting addiction?
“We're not bad people. We're sick people. And there's a huge difference between being bad and being sick. And if you I hope it breaks the stigma around that, because I know people that have been in jail and were looking at life imprisonment and have come out and, you know, gotten their family back, and gotten a car, and gotten a house, and gotten a job, and are working in sobriety, and helping other people, and are staying sober, and are changing the generational curse of what this is. I mean, this has been around forever, and it's probably not going to go away. Probably I won't see that in my lifetime. But the legacy that I would like to leave is that everybody matters.”
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