Safe Injection Rooms For The Homeless

Wales could follow Scotland’s lead and make a case for safe injecting rooms to cut the number of drug-related homeless deaths.

According to 24Housing, a report released by the Welsh Assembly’s Equality, Local Government, and Communities Committee pitches the potential for the Welsh government to work with Westminster, and non-devolved bodies such as the Police, to minimise the risk of landlords being prosecuted where residents or tenants are using drugs on their property, as part of a harm-reduction programme.

The report references services struggling to provide a basic level of support, as a lack of funding facilitates a “race to the bottom”. But the committee also took evidence of a need to ensure services offer something better than the streets.

One witness said: “The real thing that’s stopping people coming in is that the offer that we have in services is less than what the streets offer. So, if you’re in the throes of addiction, you’ve got all these complex mental health issues…you can turn that pain off with spice or heroin quite easily. We can’t offer people that. You can be nobody in a flat, or you can be somebody on the streets. There are cultural implications for people who’ve been out there for a long time.”

The committee was also told of a need for focus on providing services that meet the needs of service users, in a trauma-informed way, with a no-wrong-door approach. This was pitched as particularly important for those who may not reach out to a specialist mental health or substance misuse worker in the first instance, and may need help to navigate the system.

In evidence, representatives from the Huggard and Kaleidoscope were clear in their desire to see other more radical action taken, in particular around the provision of safe injecting rooms. But the committee acknowledges that this would require legislative change, which is outside the Assembly’s competence.

An alternative is identified in increased access to heroin-replacement treatment, with The Wallich wanting action taken to enable those receiving support to be able to use drugs within their accommodation without putting the landlord at risk of prosecution. The committee concedes that initiatives such as the establishment of injecting rooms generate “a lot of differing opinions”. However, with the number of drug-related deaths among the homeless population seen as too high, there was a need to “take every step possible” to reduce the risks and the numbers dying.

Latest figures show that 40% of homeless deaths in 2018 were drug-related. That’s 294 estimated deaths, with the number of such deaths up by 55% since 2017. Campaigners continue to make the case for drug use being treated as a public health crisis, not a criminal justice matter.

During a Commons debate on homeless death rates in October last year, Glasgow Central MP Alison Thewliss cited her own city in making the case for consumption rooms. She said: “In Glasgow, we are facing the twin risks of so-called street Valium flooding the city and an ageing population of intravenous drug users.”

During the debate, Thewliss was backed by fellow SNP MP Peter Grant who urged homelessness minister Luke Hall to “at least commit” to asking Cabinet colleagues to allow consumption rooms – even on a trial basis under medical supervision. In response, Hall referenced on-going cross-departmental working between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care on the forthcoming independent review of drugs policy, led by Dame Carol Black.