Samson Tafolo’s final count read 119.
For 45 minutes he wrapped a wagon filled with mini water bottles, hemp cigarettes and other hygiene products around the skidrow and handed out supplies to maintain a tally of everyone he served on his usual route.
Tafolo and other leaders of the Sidewalk Project are headquartered several blocks down by nonprofits, with rounds several times a week. He said the count has become part of the high stakes of work, as numbers are reported in grant applications.
The changing political situation puts their funds in abruptly at risk.
Community Ambassador Samson Tafolo at the Sidewalk Project shows the number of homeless and poor people in one morning outreach effort at Skid Row, LA.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
The Sidewalk Project is one of several groups that provide resources to homeless people, including special supplies for drug users, such as sterile syringes. While credited by supporters for saving lives during the opioid epidemic, the program remains controversial, with critics claiming they are fueled by addiction.
Leaders of similar organisations across the state are worried that the recent Trump administration’s pledge to reduce federal spending and reduce redundancy for agencies will have a far-reaching impact on their work.
“It’s just scary,” Tafolo said of the uncertain future under Trump. “It keeps us on our toes.”
Federal health officials said Friday that reductions in HIV prevention efforts, a key component of many harm reduction programs, are already in motion.
“It’s definitely an unusual threat,” said Elly Jalayer, director of HARM Reduction, which offers HIV testing and treatments and syringe replacements at Bienestar Human Services.
Jalayer said the LA County Department of Health has spoken out about its ongoing support for harm mitigation programs, but the federal funding flow is more volatile.
In San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Luley has pledged to restructure the city’s homeless services and critically view the effectiveness of city-funded nonprofits, including those that provide supplies to drug users.
“Ages where we just hand over things and not accountable — those are over,” Lurie said at a press conference.
Clive Jackson receives a hug from Samson Tafolo of the Sidewalk Project.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Last year, the sidewalk project was taken over for grants for questions about its syringe services program, according to Soma Snakeoil, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit. In 2023, the program managed over 267,000 sterile syringes and collected over 53,000 syringes from the skidrow and MacArthur Park area.
“When you’re consistently performing in a way that shows you’re successful, you’ll imagine you’ll get a refund,” Snakele said. “But they said they were moving in a different direction.”
Sidewalk project members will dispose of needles found on the streets and hand out water, sanitary bags, CBD trash and other harm reduction supplies to skid rows.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
The changes tend to focus more on treatment and reduce harm, Snakewle said. She and others warned that scaling reverse syringe programs could have serious public health consequences.
Federal officials told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month that the Department of Health and Human Services is either considering moving the Centers for Disease Control’s HIV Prevention Unit under another agency, or are considering eliminating the department entirely.
Timothy Zembek, Harm Reduction Program Manager at Being Alive LA, a nonprofit for HIV services, said both moves have set back decades of progress and are “devastating in efforts to end the HIV outbreak.”
Local officials are wiping down cuts in research and prevention efforts if the CDC’s involvement ceases.
Sheryl Barritt, executive director of the LA County HIV Commission, said her fellow commissioners (33% live with HIV) were nervous.
“I have a deep sense of anxiety and I am worried about what the current situation in the near future will bring to their lives,” Baritt said.
Programs that provide clean syringes to intravenous drug users have been shown to prevent the spread of hepatitis and other blood-borne pathogens. But Baritt said the decision at the federal level appears to be “along with a lack of analysis, a lack of community input and a lack of partnership with stakeholders who are experts in the field.”
The Department of Health and Human Services did not reply to requests from the Times.
The sense of disconnect between what government leaders believe will improve public health outcomes and what the community actually needs is what has landed Snakeoil and her sidewalk project co-founder Stacey Dee at their job.
Somasnakele, executive director and co-founder of the Sidewalk Project, sits inside a facility on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
The group was originally founded as an arts and music program, Snakeoil said. She continued after she and Dee realized “we were the right people to do that job because of the drug use experience.”
That living experience is also shared by many staff on the sidewalk.
One of the main things that knock on reducing the main harm is to enable and promote illegal drug use. But some sidewalk staff who turned their lives around said they wanted to have access to services like theirs when they were on the streets.
Crash-Hering, who heads the Sidewalk Community Ambassador Program, sold drugs and used them live on Skidrow. He stopped trading when his son was born in 2006 and has since painted murals in his old counter.
When Haring played a neighbourhood round with his team on Wednesday in late March, he stopped on every block and greeted old friends passing by.
“We’re like a lighthouse,” he said. “When you’re stepping on water, you need a lighthouse.”
Crush Herring, right, handing out the hygiene bag to a man on Skidrow in downtown Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
When the herring removed supplies, he directed a new recipient to a drop-insight on the Stanford Avenue sidewalk. This is a renovated garage space where you can eat, rest and shop with free stock of overdose reversal medication, clean syringes, sharp containers and other initial aid and hygiene products.
So Michelle Ortiz, a regular on the sidewalk, loaded up juice, oatmeal and underwear.
The HIV-positive Ortiz has lived in Skidrow for more than a decade, she said. Meanwhile, she was assaulted and even gave birth on the street.
Last year, she said the sidewalks helped Ortiz move to Weintoll’s residential tower. She still uses drugs from time to time – “I’m not going to lie to you” – but she has fewer than before and she is now taking medication for HIV.
Without the sidewalk, Ortiz said, “I wouldn’t be here – that would have been different.”
Despite testimony from people such as Ortiz, the tide appears to be changing for reducing harm. Last year’s voting initiative’s passing proposal 36 enacted more severe penalties for several drug crimes, but now the Trump administration is poised to enact drastic changes.
Snakeoil noted that it cites “all aspects of our work on a list of prohibited conditions,” citing hundreds of conditions the Trump administration reportedly instructed federal employees to avoid.
Some nonprofits are in a hurry to change the language of their organizations to secure federal funding, Snakeoil said, while others are fleeing to the private sector.
For Snakeoil, “it’s hard to see the path to sustainability” – especially when Trump and California officials promote the public interest against harsh criminal tactics.
“We’ve seen a lot of people who have a lot of trouble with the disease,” said Sebastian Perez, a State Department expert at APLA Health & Wellness, a nonprofit focused on preventing overdose and diseases such as HIV.
As shown by the death of Proposition 36, Perez said, “I want the public to be punitive now.”
However, drug policy researchers have long narrowed down the strictness of drug users. This is not an evidence-based approach.
Peter Davidson, a professor in San Diego, California, is studying the effectiveness of so-called overdose prevention sites.
“We give them criminal records, so it’s difficult for them to have a legal job and be part of a legal economy. All the instability that comes with it makes it difficult for them to get a home,” Davidson said. “Then we hope they will somehow quit using drugs.”
Meanwhile, he said studies have shown that people using the syringe exchange program are more likely to enter treatment.
And the people of Skid Row continue to worry about losing some of the only good they think is being done in their neighborhood.
“I’m worried that Trump might want to close all of this,” resident Alvaro Rodriguez said while lined up for sidewalk equipment.
As he left, Rodriguez grabbed a worn-out book of composition. Among them, a business plan that drives himself and his neighbors off the streets.
Crushow Herring from Sidewalk Project receives a hug from a friend while working in outreach work at Skid Row.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
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