Could ‘safe rooms’ for heroin users save lives?
Since the 1600s, Boston has been the unofficial capital of New England — and, at times, the nation. Now healthcare advocates for the homeless believe it’s time for the City on a Hill to lead the way in combatting a new scourge making alarming inroads in even small-town America: opiate addiction.
The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which treats almost half of the city’s roughly 25,000 people who are homeless for some point each year, is raising funds for a “safe space” for drug users: simply a room where they can receive medical attention, and rest in comfort, while they’re high, as local NPR station WBUR reports.