A new mobile harm reduction service is bringing overdose prevention to the streets of Arapahoe County to help people who use opioids and other drugs.
The Arapahoe County Public Health department says it’s using an equity-focused approach on its new harm reduction van to help reduce the toll of the opioid epidemic on the community.
The new mobile unit, Prevention Point, will offer safer substance use and sexual health services to people across the county including a syringe access and disposal program, Narcan and testing for HIV, hepatitis C and other infections transmitted by unsafe sex and drug use, officials said.
On Tuesday morning, county commissioners, Arapahoe public health department leaders and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser gathered in Littleton to unveil the program and share more about the initiative.
Over the last year, the county’s harm reduction team has provided care through street outreach and at fixed locations. But gaps in services create a need to reach people in other parts of the community that are outside of public buildings, said Jennifer Ludwig, public health director at the Arapahoe County Public Health Department.
“When the Prevention Point mobile unit rolls off today and out onto the streets, it will fill those gaps and support people who need our services but face barriers to accessing them in traditional settings,” she said as snow fell during a news conference near the Arapahoe County Government Administration Building.
“In a way, it’s appropriate today that it’s snowing, because it helps illustrate the importance of the services we will provide at Prevention Point,” she said.
The van will provide life-saving care and offer a warm place for clients to find respite from the elements, she said.
Harm reduction services help keep communities safer and healthier, county leaders wrote in a news release Monday night.
Harm reduction programs help reduce the spread of diseases, safely manage syringe disposal and reduce barriers to critical services such as naloxone for overdose reversal, the news release said.
Mobile harm reduction programs also help build trust between providers and people struggling with drug addiction, advocates say, a critical first step to helping people who are often overlooked and stigmatized access life-saving services.
Opioid overdoses and addiction have devastated families and communities across Colorado and the crisis threatens public health, safety and the state’s economy.
The Colorado Department of Law is suing pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors, cracking down on drug cartels to stem trafficking of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl and improving access to treatment in rural and underserved communities to combat the devastating effects of the opioid epidemic.
In 2023, 180 people died in Arapahoe County from opioid overdoses.
State leaders are expecting to receive more than $750 million in opioid settlement funds from well-known organizations such as Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Kroger and Johnson & Johnson.
The settlement money will be invested in communities to help fund addiction treatment, recovery, prevention and education. Some of those settlement dollars will fund the new mobile harm reduction service in Arapahoe County.
Arapahoe County allocated more than $2 million in 2023 to local partners through a multistate settlement with opioid manufacturers. The money is managed by the Region 9 Opioid Council, one of 19 regional councils charged with allocating settlement money.
The Region 9 Opioid Council, which represents Arapahoe County, is funding programs including detox centers, sober living, peer navigators, harm reduction, co-responders and youth leadership programs, according to a January news release from the county.
“Opioid use disorder has created very considerable challenges for law enforcement and the solution is not to keep people incarcerated to harm people. The solution is to help people get well,” Attorney General Weiser said.
“Too many of us know people who have died because of overdoses or because they’ve been given pills with fentanyl that they thought were otherwise,” Weiser said. “We cannot close our hearts to what is a crisis that is harming so many.”
As snow fell, and people dispersed at the end of the news conference, the van was prepared to roll away on a mini roadshow around the county, stopping in Englewood, Bennett and Aurora to meet community members and leaders at partnering organizations.