Safety creates context. When I think about harm reduction, I am often reminded of Marshall McLuhan, a theorist from the ’70s who was obsessed with the effects of television and popular media. McLuhan’s most famous quote was “The medium is the message”.
This concept of “medium” is precisely why harm reduction is effective. The act of providing someone with a clean needle has the potential to deepen their belonging to the human race because of the unspoken messages that providing safety carries with it.
The same unspoken messages could be shared with any person who feels separated from society, and it would be true:
You belong.
Your life has immense value, so please be safe in this difficult time.
This is to protect you while you reclaim the determination required for you to heal.
We expect you to recover, and we want to help you move forward.
By contrast, withholding life-saving resources from individuals struggling with addiction essentially abandons them. This creates a context (exile) that often deepens the stigma of addiction, and thereby allows it to increase its stranglehold on vulnerable individuals.
This is why any authentic form of harm reduction must prioritize safety. Even if a social worker says nothing explicit to a person about their inherent value, providing them with safety is comparable to the implementation of a trojan horse.
Social workers often find themselves in a battle against the powerful stigmas associated with addiction, poverty, and homelessness. Instead of sneaking soldiers into a fortress, safety communicates that a person is valuable and belongs even if they have slipped into a pattern of self-medication.
These messages can be transformative for clients because they open up avenues for healing and moving forward towards a life that complements a community and a neighborhood. This is where deeply affordable and subsidized housing becomes so meaningful for people trying to heal.
The safety of an apartment carries with it all of these same potent messages. The difference is that while many of our clients know how to use a needle, they are often unprepared for how to use their living space.
Housing Survival focusses on the questions of what the client values, and what their living space is for. It tackles the actions and circumstances that often lead to eviction so that clients can avoid them, and thereby prevent the traumas that accompany recidivism back into homelessness.
