The first-ever state-regulated overdose prevention center in the country is on track to open later this year at 45 Willard Ave. in Providence.
An overdose prevention center, also known as a supervised injection site, is a designated place where users of pre-obtained illicit drugs such as heroin can get high while being monitored by trained staff who can intervene and provide aid to someone suffering from a medical emergency.
While there are two OPCs open in New York City, this will be the first one that’s subject to state regulations, including an R.I. Department of Health requirement for ventilation to deal with the smoke produced by people doing crack cocaine and other substances.
Gov. Daniel J. McKee signed legislation in July 2021 allowing for a pilot program of the center, which will operate until March 2026 due to a sunset provision.
The 20,000-square-foot facility will be up and running by late summer or fall 2024, according to the operator, Project Weber/RENEW, a peer-led nonprofit organization. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The center is in the build-out phase after recently receiving unanimous City Council approval. Project Weber/RENEW said it is renting a three-story brick building, a renovated mill previously occupied by Care New England Health System, but the group will have the option to purchase the building at the end of its leasing period.
Project Weber/RENEW said it is going through contractor bids and the architectural design for the space, which will include partitioned booths and a central nursing station where staff will have a line of sight on up to 16 drug users at a time.
“The goal is to provide people with space and autonomy but the ability to intervene, if necessary,” said Annajane Yolken, director of programs at Project Weber/RENEW. “We want to be a model not only for others in the state of Rhode Island but for other states across the country that want to open these OPCs in a regulated way.”
The safe injection site will be the subject of a four-year study, announced last May, by the People, Place and Health Collective at Brown University’s School of Public Health, led by Brandon Marshall, the school’s chair of epidemiology. The main component of the study is an 18-month observation of 500 people each in New York City and Providence, including 250 local users of highly addictive drugs who avail themselves of the center and 250 others who do not.
“This is a hugely important research study,” Marshall said. “We do know from much research conducted in other countries about some of the public health benefits of OPCs. Those … were mostly in larger cities. This is one of the first times we’ll be able to study and evaluate the impact in a smaller city. From a research perspective, that will provide novel insights.”
In addition to conducting surveys every six months and doing monthly check-ins with participants, Marshall and his team of researchers and their counterparts at New York University’s Langone Health will analyze statistics gathered by state health authorities.
The study, which received grant funding through the National Institutes of Health, will also look at whether participants are more or less likely to see treatment for substance use disorders.
“We hypothesize that using the OPC will result in decreased medical emergencies and hospitalizations,” Marshall said. “We’ll also be looking at neighborhood-level data. We’ll be working with the state health department to examine patterns of EMS [emergency medical service] runs for overdoses in the immediate neighborhood around the overdose prevention center and compare that to any changes in overdose rates in the rest of the city.”
The center will employ five staff members to provide peer support and monitor drug-using clients, along with a medical director, a second medical consultant, a shuttle driver and additional front desk employees, Yolken said.
Project Weber/RENEW’s partner organization, VICTA, will provide an on-site behavioral health clinician, a nurse providing wound care and other treatment, and a part-time physician who will be able to prescribe medications to clients, Yolken said.
Project Weber/RENEW will be moving out of its longtime harm reduction facility at 640 Broad St., while continuing to provide the same peer-led recovery support just a mile away at its new building, Yolken said.
The new center is being funded using the opioid settlement money administered by the R.I. Executive Office of Health & Human Services, which allotted a total of $3.25 million for the program in fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
In addition to less potential for fatal overdoses and no increased crime in the vicinity, Yolken says, the country’s two existing OPCs in New York City have seen fewer incidents of public disorder and less drug paraphernalia in public spaces.
“All the drug paraphernalia stays inside the building,” she said. “That’s what we anticipate seeing. That’s what we see in New York. Our goal is to keep biohazardous materials out of the community and keep the community safer. Our goal is to increase community health and safety not only for our participants but the greater community.”
