New York Governor Kathy Hochul has never been outspoken about overdose prevention centers (OPC). But since taking office in January 2023, the limited comments she has made on the issue have not been supportive. Whether that might change after the November elections is an open question, and one that may come down to whether the governor’s office feels sufficient pressure.
On August 28, harm reduction advocates representing the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), Housing Works and VOCAL-NY assembled outside Hochul’s Manhattan office, calling on her to take executive action to expand housing access and authorize OPC. The rally was part of Overdose Prevention Centers National Solidarity Week, a series of community-led events DPA helped organize in order to build political will to authorize OPC.
“Fund harm reduction the way you fund treatment providers,” organizers chanted. “Support OPCs the way you support the NYPD.”
In response to Filter‘s request for comment on OPC authorization, Hochul’s office shared its August 21 press release on the subject of overdose, but which does not mention OPC.
“I’m committed to keeping New Yorkers safe and turning the tide against an overdose epidemic that has taken far too many neighbors, friends and family members in New York and across the nation,” Hochul stated in the press release. “We’ll continue taking aggressive action and deploying new resources that will save lives.”
The statement highlighted the $335 million the state has so far disbursed in opioid settlement funds. A few miles away, the only two legal OPC in the United States operate under city authorization—with no state funding.
OnPoint NYC opened its two locations in November 2021, both at longstanding Manhattan syringe service programs (SSP). The organization has successfully intervened each of the more than 1,500 overdoses on its premises to date; no one has died. Most of the overdoses were averted with supplemental oxygen, without needing to subject participants to the Narcan that may cause precipitated withdrawal. OnPoint has lately been offering rescue breathing trainings to participants in addition to Narcan trainings.
“People are dying, they’re being killed—not just one day, but every day,” Mary Ellen, a participant in harm reduction services at one of the OnPoint locations for 15 years, told Filter. “They’re dying across the state … we’re going to make it known.”
Rhode Island, Minnesota and Vermont have authorized OPC pilots, though none have an operational site yet. Hochul has claimed that this is not a viable use of the funds, despite precedent in other states. But in New York City alone, around $60 million in settlement payouts has been distributed without seeming to arrive anywhere.
“We need transparency when it comes to that release of funding, so folks know what services and programs they’re actually being allocated to,” DPA Policy Associate Gia Mitcham told Filter. “As of now they’re kind of just like, these buckets that are general-area … we need to see where they’re actually going.”
DPA and others see the AIDS Institute Office of Drug User Health, part of the state Department of Health (NYSDOH), as the state government office with the best understanding of the barriers facing drug user communities, and the best equipped to get the money where it actually needs to go.
The NYSDOH does have some authority over how harm reduction funds are allocated. But the designated lead state agency is the Office of Addiction Services and Supports.
“I think the barrier is getting the Office of Addiction Services and Supports to kind of relinquish control of certain pockets of money,” Toni Smith, DPA’s New York state director, told Filter. “We want to see funding going to the agency that has lived and breathed harm reduction for 30 years when other agencies weren’t there yet.”
“The governor has said is that she doesn’t have the authority to act on overdose prevention centers … it’s not true.”
Since its creation in 2022, the New York State Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Board has consistently recommended using settlement payouts to fund OPC statewide, including piloting on-site safe supply programs dispensing medications like diacetylmorphine (pharmaceutical heroin).
Hochul has rejected that recommendations, along with the Advisory Board’s recommendation to put the NYSDOH in charge of allocating harm reduction dollars.
“The governor has said is that she doesn’t have the authority to act on overdose prevention centers, that there are laws that are in the way,” Smith said. “States can absolutely act on this issue, and are. It’s not true that you can’t act.”
In 1992, at the height of the AIDS crisis, the New York State Department of Health issued emergency authorization of SSP. A small network of pilot programs had been operating in New York City, but SSP were not yet legal. Under Governor Mario Cuomo, New York formally adopted the emergency regulations and SSP were legalized across the state, with wraparound harm reduction services including bridging participants to treatment.
In the years that followed, states across the country began piloting SSP and seeing the same results as in New York: Drug use did not increase; HIV transmission went down.
Correction, September 2: This article has been updated with the correct spelling of Gia Mitcham’s name.
Photographs by Sarah Duggan/DPA
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