I started SWAN because I was at a city meeting in 2016 when I saw the news about a so-called ‘prostitution’ sting in New Haven. They had pictures of 14 women and that upset me so much because that could’ve been me 50 years ago. I was outraged that all that money was spent on criminalizing people who were just trying to survive. So I knew that I had to do something and I was a little bit scared because I was in the closet about my past. But I just couldn’t stay silent, so I outed myself to the police chief.

I am very well-known in the city as being an activist so I sent an email to the police chief and told him that we had to meet, that this was not right and had to stop. Long story short, he agreed to see me and from that meeting he called off the stings—there haven’t been any stings in New Haven. They talked about arresting the dates, but we’re against that too because it’s just going to drive the women into the shadows. They’re doing sex work to survive and taking away their livelihood is just going to force them into dangerous situations. You’ll never arrest away sex work never. Decriminalization is the answer you don’t get arrested, you don’t get a ticket, you don’t get anything.

SWAN’s main goals are to get people to recognize sex work as real work, to treat people who engage in sex work with dignity and respect, and to stop trying to criminalize them. We offer harm reduction services, such as handing out clean syringes, and we take back thousands of used syringes and get them off the street. We also offer groups and support. We have accompanied people to court, we have bailed people out, we have spoken to prosecutors about their cases and we’ve been successful because they’ve heard about SWAN.

We had a self-defense class for the community, not just sex workers, that was very popular, and we offer groups that SWAN members have said they wanted—like we had a psychiatrist and a social worker come and talk about what trauma is and how your body reacts. When the women brought up that they would like an STI group, we got some nurses to come with STI kits. If the tests came back positive, the women were treated and everybody learned how to prevent STIs. The work we do is so important it’s saving lives and it’s uplifting lives, too.

I think right now the most important thing we can do is get Narcan into the hands of as many people as we can. Not just people who use drugs, but people all over the city: storekeepers, restaurants, people who walk through the city, anybody in the neighborhood. We’re seeing an uptick in overdose deaths so we want to expand our outreach as much as possible. Narcan saves lives and people shouldn’t be afraid to use it or think there’s a stigma.

Every time there’s an overdose, I post on Facebook, ‘If you need Narcan, it’s free, and we’ll do the training pass this message on.’ And when there’s bad dope out there, when there’s a spike in overdose deaths, we put out an alert, ‘There’s bad dope, be careful, don’t use alone.

I can’t remember much of the first six months after we lost our apartment. It’s like a fog. I’ve had anxiety and being homeless has made it go up so much. For somebody with anxiety, having to be in that fight or flight mode—and I’m always fight, I don’t run—constantly having to be on edge really messes with you.

So when we got to DESK, as soon as we walked in you could just feel the love. They were like, ‘You’re new’ and we’re like, ‘Yeah, where do we get clothes, where do we get food, where do we even just brush our teeth?’ I think what really helped is that they took the time to get to know us. They didn’t look at us and automatically write us off. They don’t coddle you and treat you like a child, but they don’t pity you as well. In a sense, they give you the tools for you to either do things on your own or help you figure out how to do it.

A lot of times people will be like, ‘Well, just get another place.’ James has the income but with an eviction in Connecticut, it’s almost like a death sentence. You have something on your record for seven years and when you’re low-income, the only places that you can rent won’t take you because of the eviction.

In general, everyone classifies people who are homeless into three categories: that you have a problem with drugs, alcohol, or mental health. But some people just fall on hard times. It’s not always addiction or mental health.

The thing I love about DESK is I can have a bad day where I can scream and they’ll be like, ‘Alright, what’s going on?’ They’re not like, ‘Whoa, you’re being rude’ and threaten to kick you out. It’s never, if you say something we don’t like or if you talk out of line or if we don’t agree with something in your life—they don’t hold that over your head. That is so vital.

A lot of people see the relapse or the usage but they don’t see the recovery, so I’m very thankful that my clientele has given me the opportunity to see both sides. It’s been very rewarding. I had one client who was pregnant—I knew she panhandled but I couldn’t find her. Then after hours I was driving with my children and I saw her on the boulevard. I went home, dropped my children off, came back and met her where she was at. I didn’t know that that gesture would impact her as much it did. When she would disappear, she knew I would come find her on the boulevard. So that has stuck with me—I wanted her to know that someone cared. Another client, I was with her family for three years and she still calls me. Every goal that she accomplishes that we made together, she calls me when she accomplishes that goal. She says, ‘I’m not sure that this is still your number but I’ve got to let you know.’

I think it’s really important for everyone to understand that just because the mother uses during pregnancy, it doesn’t mean that it will have a long-term effect on the child. I have seen some very, very highly intelligent children who were born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. They want to learn. And they still care about their parents. They don’t view their parent the way that the world views them. That’s still mom.

We do a lot of street outreach so we partner with our local street psychiatry team and nonprofit harm reduction suppliers and just go out and try and connect with people and find out what services they need.

I think just listening to people and being willing to show that you have the time to talk with them is the most effective skill I’ve learned so far. Because if somebody isn’t ready to talk to me about signing up for insurance or being connected with a methadone clinic but they’re willing to talk to me about why they want housing, then I can build that rapport as somebody that they can trust. Also as somebody who wants to hear about what they have to say, to make sure that our approach is appropriate and effective.

We’re finding that more and more people are overdosing with stimulant involvement and that fentanyl is now being combined with stimulants in New Haven. But there’s a misconception that it’s still only in heroin or opioids, so we’ll be out on the street talking to people and they’re like no, I don’t need to talk to you—I use cocaine. So a lot of our work is about what kind of messaging do we need to get out in New Haven specifically about what’s happening here.

We’re doing surveys to try to gain a better understanding of the lived experience of overdose and what people felt they needed after an overdose. Was it Narcan? Was it methadone? Was it access to [sterile] syringes or a recovery support program?  That will guide the post-overdose response plan we’re developing so we can follow up with them if they’ve consented to that and link them to services or find out about any needs that we can help fill.

I stopped injecting drugs in 2011 so carrying Narcan and worrying about fentanyl wasn’t as prevalent then. When Narcan started to be more accessible, I got trained right away and made sure I always had extra and just kept looking out for my friends who were still using. In New Jersey, we only have seven syringe exchanges so they’re kind of hard to locate and there’s none in Middlesex County so we were like, what if we filled the gaps? What if we got syringes to people through secondary exchange? What if we handed out Narcan where there’s no free Narcan? In 2019 we started doing outreach in New Brunswick and it just took off from there.

When we started offering fentanyl testing strips, I think that let people know that we get that drug use is happening. A lot of times I would just ask, ‘What else would be helpful to have?’ And people said we need syringes, we need clean supplies. People have asked us for pipes so that’s next on our list, to find some funding for that. This community knows 100 percent how to take care of themselves—they just need resources. So we really just try to be aware of what’s going on, ask people if what we’re doing is working and let them lead us. If we can be the link to resources then we’ll be the link to resources—literally meeting you where you’re at.

When we decided to start a phone line, somehow we were able to get 877-4 NARCAN. Then when everything happened with Covid-19 we wanted to make sure people had as much Narcan as possible for the quarantine and we had a huge response. Not only from family members of people who use drugs and people who used to use drugs but also from different programs. One of our first calls was from an inpatient treatment center that didn’t have a way to get Narcan to give people when they’re leaving so we made sure they had it. Then we got a call from a hospital that has recovery coaches who meet people after they overdose and kind of guide them. They didn’t have a way to give them Narcan so we’re like we’ll get you some. We started to do Zoom trainings for overdose reversal and prevention and it just caught on.

We do naloxone mailings twice a week and about half goes to people directly—like if you texted us we’d send you a kit and a little note, keeping it anonymous so nothing is traceable if you don’t want someone to see it. People who request Narcan are able to say why they need it and a lot of times it’s something as simple as, “I don’t want to be seen going to the pharmacy in my town to ask for it.” You have to say you’re at risk for an overdose to get Narcan at a pharmacy in New Jersey, and some won’t even give it to you so mailing it takes away that stigma.

Also, New Jersey doesn’t have a great public transportation infrastructure so having a mailing option really allows us to get to more rural places. We’ve met people who have become community distributors so they’ll say, ‘Is there any way you could mail me 10? I live in a house with a bunch of people who are at risk.’ We have some people who we mail 50 kits a month and they get them out throughout the state which really allows us to cover ground that’s harder to reach.

I think people put unnecessary barriers on distributing naloxone but my thing is just get the Narcan out there first and then we’re going to go back and figure out why this gap is happening, so that’s become a mission.