
Support HRTCs Mobile Response to COVID
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
Support Harm Reduction Therapy Center's Response to COVID-19
With the onset of COVID-19, HRTC’s community-based programs, which have been successfully engaging 500+ people per week on SF's streets in pop-up mental health clinics, have shifted to an outreach-based model. Our deep relationships within the unhoused community and our mobile infrastructure have allowed us to make these changes quickly.
1. We are providing comprehensive roving outreach services and we've expanded our mobile program to reach more people and encampments without creating congregate spaces.
2. We have set up an Emotional Support Phone Line, staffed by therapists 50 hours per week, so that people can reach us for emotional support, help with their substance use and case management.
3. We are working with a bottled water company to supply us with reusable aluminum container bottled water.
4. We have shifted our pop-up hot meal service to sack lunches with a warm burrito, water, candy, and fruit. From 500 meals/week, we are now distributing 900.
5. We are screening people for COVID-19, taking temperatures, asking about symptoms, and triaging people displaying symptoms.
6. Our Narcan distribution has increased from 10 to more than 50 units weekly and we have begun distributing other harm reduction supplies.
7. We are distributing 2 person tents in collaboration with the SF Coalition on Homelessness so that folx can better socially distance.
8. We are working diligently to acquire masks and individual hand sanitizers to hand out. As of 5/4/20, we've handed out more than 1200 masks and 600 bottles of hand sanitizer.
9. We've just initiated a plan to create and distribute Mental Health Care Packages for people in isolation rooms with harm reduction zines, stress balls, crisis management resources, and more!
10. Finally, building on our new outreach infrastructure, we have developed multi-disciplinary teams with the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) Street Medicine team and the SFDPH Syringe Access Services so that we can meet all of the basic, medical, and behavioral health needs of people living on the streets.
We need your support!
Help us provide food, water, masks, hand sanitizer, and mental health care packages to SF's most vulnerable people.
Learn More About HRTC's Community Services Here
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