Much of California’s homeless population is stuck in cycles of substance use. These strategies can help

I started using methamphetamine and PCP in the 1980s after surviving an abusive childhood, and continued to use them for more than 35 years. Throughout that time, I fell into homelessness and even spent 18 years in state prison.

This experience made it clear that, if we want to help people with substance use disorder, we must prioritize techniques to reduce harm and save lives. 

I’m living proof that these strategies work.

In prison, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. Research indicates that mental illness may precede substance use disorders in many people. But, because I didn’t receive the right mental health care or support, my life was a cycle of homelessness and stints in prison.

All of that could have been avoided with the right care.

It wasn’t until I lost both of my parents in 2019 and fell down a dark hole that I finally surrendered and began educating myself on the disease that I had been battling my entire life.

To beat substance use disorder, you need to have the will and the right knowledge. You also need support from health care professionals – something I never received until I interacted with the penal system. It was only there that I received detox care that helped me get clean.

Unfortunately, my story is not unique. So many of our neighbors experiencing homelessness do not have access to the kind of care they need to overcome substance use disorder, which is almost always a significant barrier to finding stable employment or securing permanent housing. 

This is a growing crisis, with the number of people who began experiencing homelessness growing nearly 7% between 2022 and 2023. Nearly 10,000 people became unhoused in California last year.

Without the proper support and care, their cycle will continue.

I’ve been clean for years, and now I’m spending my life helping others win their battles against the same disease I struggled with. I was once pulled out from a dark place. As a substance use disorder counselor for San Diego’s largest homelessness services provider, I get to do the same for others.

In the seven months that I’ve worked at Father Joe’s Villages, I’ve helped 43 people get into an intensive outpatient program, a residential program or a detox facility.

My life experience and my current work have taught me that there are key strategies that can help our neighbors experiencing homelessness with substance use disorder get sober for good and move toward a life of hope. At Father Joe’s, we use a harm reduction or minimization model, a set of evidence-based strategies that can help people struggling with addiction by meeting them where they are at.

Combined with wraparound services that can lead to securing permanent housing, this is a strategy that we know works.

This can involve mental, behavioral and physical health care, as well as strategies that allow for both safer use options and medication-assisted treatments. Last year, Father Joe’s installed a vending machine with fentanyl test strips and naloxone, which can help reverse overdoses.

Although some aspects of harm reduction may seem counterintuitive, their purpose is to save lives. We cannot help people struggling with substance use disorder if they are dead. Since 2000, there have been upwards of 1 million deaths from drug overdoses in the U.S. If we can save a person from an overdose using critical medicine like naloxone, we can provide them the kind of care, support and services to help them overcome their substance use disorder for good. 

If we truly want to help save lives, we need to prioritize and popularize life-saving strategies.