“If you really wanna help the problem, you should take some of your moral judgments and preconceived notions out of the picture and treat this practically. Ask how can we prevent people who use injection drugs - how can we prevent them from getting HIV, how can we prevent them from getting hepatitis C and other infections, and save the system money? It seems like the right thing to do, from a moral standpoint, and also a very practical, pragmatic thing to do.”
“Participants at HRAC come from all walks of life. They are businesspeople, they are people in the community, they are your neighbors, they are your friends. You likely see them as you go about your day to day life and don’t know it.”
“This is one time I actually remember my mom saying she was proud of me, and she actually meant it. I mean, you wanna talk about accolades or something, that was such a positive motivation in my life right there. Without the work that I’ve done, without the work that these guys [HRAC] have allowed me to do, I never would have heard those simple words from my mom.”
“Right now on the overdose epidemic, the frontlines are drug users, syringe access programs, law enforcement, and emergency departments, so we’ve had to work together in a way we just never had the opportunity to before.”
“We’re not only business owners here on Broadway, we’re residents of the neighborhood. I mean, we live here, we shop here, our kids are gonna go to school here. This is not just a profit, bottom line, business concern for us. The safety of the neighborhood where we live is a big concern also.”