ACR Health Is Here To Help
“If you hear gunshots, run back into the van immediately.”
Those were the first words Belinda Felder, ACR Health’s SEP Coordinator, told her group of three peer counselors when they arrived in an abandoned parking lot on Syracuse’s westside.
Once parked, Brown would stay in the van to help administer clean syringe needles to current clients while her three peer counselors, Dave Andres, Brian Allen and Gaga DePasquale, took to the streets, where they would ultimately pick up and dispose of over 300 contaminated syringes in less than two hours.
Brown and her team of workers all work for ACR Health, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping people addicted to opioids through various programs such as narcan training and their syringe exchange outreach. According to their mission statement, they strive for, “a community in which every person has the opportunity to achieve optimal health and equality.” Their mission is spreading, with membership fees and donations up from $4,121,497 million in 2013 to $9,242,397 million in 2017, according to ACR’s 990 form.
The growing support is needed, with opioid related deaths in Onondaga County skyrocketing from 45 in 2012 to 101 in 2018, according to the Onondaga government. Two of ACR’s core methods to tackling this issue is de-stigmatizing the “shame” directed at users while encouraging harm reduction. ACR makes it clear they do not condone drug use; they simply value life. Their challenge is containing the main opioids (fentanyl, heroin, methadone and oxytocin) that have become high in demand.
“A lot of times it’s just having a conversation with somebody, telling them, ‘hey, we value your life and we want you to stay alive and this is a safe way to inject,’” said Kevin Donovan, ACR’s overdose prevention coordinator. “Some people might be stuck in their addiction and be actively using for their whole life, but that doesn’t mean that person’s life doesn’t deserve the same amount of value as another person.”
The syringe exchange program is fairly simple. By ridding the streets of filthy needles and supplying fresh ones to clients, ACR is not exactly fixing the problem, but instead improving the situation and doing the best they can.
“We’re trying to reach a population of current drug users who are completely disconnected,” Donovan said. “They may be disconnected from family, they may be disconnected from friends, they may be isolated, but they’re definitely disconnected from all health services and probably haven’t seen a doctor in years.”
Men such as Andres, Allen and Gaga have discovered a newfound value in their lives after years of struggling with drug issues. Andres, a portly man with a flowing red beard, moved from Portland to Syracuse after he attempted to take his own life by driving his truck into a utility pole.
“I was knocked unconscious and when I woke up in the hospital, I told myself, ‘I gotta get my shit together. I’m not going out like this. It was a much needed epiphany,’” Andres said.
Allen, an ex-opioid addict whose arms are dotted with purple needle marks, is giving back to the same community he escaped from. Before his recovery, Allen would regularly steal from stores just to make ends meet. Now, he spends about ten hours a week picking up dirty syringes all over town.
“After a while of thinking you can fight this addiction, I got to a point where I had to surrender and say ‘listen, enough is enough,’” Allen said. “I’m trying to start a new life and career, and I get to be outside to do something that’s the best way to give back to the community.”
As they trek around town looking for recurring locations that consistently have dirty syringes, signs of the carnage are everywhere. In one parking lot, a memorial of a teddy bear and some decaying candles lies on the ground. When they walk through a residential area, two boys no older than 12 years-old alert them of some syringes behind an abandoned house. A few blocks later, a heavily tattooed man recommends they head over to Dudley and Fitch St., where there are “piles” of used syringes and crack pipes.
When Andres, Allen and DePasquale arrive at a spacious yet unoccupied park, they head straight for the bushes. When asked how they know exactly where the syringes always are, DePasquale gave an enlightening response.
“It’s where I would go if I wanted to get high without anybody watching,” he said.
Sure enough, behind the bush is a trove of needles, crack pipes, emptied dope packets, used cotton balls and cookers.
“Imagine a poor kid playing around here. They see a bright, colored pointy stick and the first thing they probably want to do is to play with it,” Allen said. “It’s just tragic.”
An hour into their clean-up, a firecracker noise is heard way into the distance. But everybody knows it’s not a firecracker. Allen, Andres and DePasquale decide to relocate to another area, where they stare intently at the ground for more potential syringes. The entire afternoon is a mix of emotions for the three men; cathartic yet nerve-wracking at the same time. But no matter the dark circumstances and harsh realities they witness three times a week, they always look at it through a positive prism.
“Seeing all these people struggling reminds me where I came from and where I don’t want to go back to,” Andres said. “I gotta let people know there’s a better way to live, because if it wasn’t for my recovery, I’d be dead by now.”
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