This March MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving announced HRTC as one of 361 awardee organizations (out of more than 6300 applicants) working with people and in places experiencing the greatest need in the United States.  [see press release here] This generous gift couldn’t have come at a better time for HRTC, as our service community is feeling deeply the effects of local and state policies focused on coercive treatment and targeting our unhoused neighbors (such as Prop F in San Francisco and State mandated “care courts”).   

Being poor is not a crime.  All of us have mental health needs, some more than others.  Almost all of us use drugs (many of us legally–caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, lipitor–and some of us use substances our government criminalizes).  Those of us with serious mental health and substance use needs require comprehensive, person-centered, wrap around services that empower and heal us.  We need compassionate, inclusive, collaborative and paced care options for our community members who are most vulnerable.  We need policing out of treatment; we have repeatedly seen what a knee on the neck of drug users of color in the United States results in and there is no way we can call that care.  We need policy that considers the long-term needs of marginalized, traumatized people and advocates for systemic change.  We need harm reduction! We need more harm reduction therapy!

We thank Yield Giving for recognizing the needs of San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents and for their confidence in HRTC’s efforts to bring harm reduction therapy to everyone whose relationship with drugs may be of concern.  

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