Harm Reduction Hacks in Focus: Space Hacks
Community Building
There are 6 hacks in this section
Rooted Together
Strong relationships protect everyone when things get hard
Community isn’t just a feel-good concept—it’s one of the strongest protective factors we have in harm reduction. Leaders across the field agree: when participants and staff feel a real sense of belonging, shared purpose, and mutual responsibility, service spaces are safer, calmer, and more effective. This section explores how to intentionally build both internal and external community, from everyday practices to long-term planning, so that when tension rises, the strength of your relationships helps keep things grounded.
Creating and Defining Community
Posted in Community Building.
Over and over, harm reduction leaders interviewed for Space Hacks centered the creation of community as central to their efforts to create safe, humane harm reduction spaces services that are trauma-informed and minimize the potential for escalated situations.
Hacks for Developing Internal Community
Posted in Community Building.
Building internal community means building relationships based on your shared values as a part of a harm reduction organization.
Practical Hacks for Team Building and Community Unity
Posted in Community Building.
Beyond the abstract instructions for building community, like practicing equity and being fair, are some very concrete suggestions on building community.
Hacks for Developing Larger/External Community
Posted in Community Building.
Your external community is made up of the larger community around you, such as neighbors and other community members. It is imperative that you make allies with people in your larger community, city, county, health jurisdiction, and/or your state, to help ensure that things do not escalate with the larger community either.
Being Neighborly: Right Outside Community Relations Hacks
Posted in Community Building.
Your neighbors adjacent to your sites are some of the most important allies to develop. These folks can be an asset, or a liability, and the choice is partially predicated on how you approach them and how responsible a community member you and your organization are in the community where you set up shop.
Preparing for the Worst: Hacking NIMBYs
Posted in Community Building.
No matter how friendly we are and how good our intentions, there may be people in the community who are hostile to the work we do with people who use drugs and other marginalized community members. Therefore, it’s imperative that in addition to being warm, friendly, inviting, and transparent as much as possible, we also prepare for the worst.
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“Many of the harm reduction leaders interviewed talked about the importance of not having too many policies and involving your participants in the development of policies—especially those that impact them directly.”
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"One of the most important things we can do as advocates is to define & make concrete the vague terms used by politicians. What does it mean to “take a public health approach”? What you mean when you say “treatment”? Politicians rarely know. Our job is to make it plain for them."
Jonathan Giftos -
“One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”
Charles M. Blow -
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
Thich Nhat Hanh -
"Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone."
Fred Rogers -
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
Martin Luther King Jr. -
"There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do."
Terry Pratchett -
"I describe my experiences as a nurse volunteer at the overdose prevention site as “being in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.” And that’s exactly where I want to be as a nurse: working outside the system to make a real difference in people’s lives, showing up in the community when it matters most and challenging rules that directly contribute to the overdose crisis, and exposing government inaction by being part of the solution on the ground. For me, this is what nursing is all about."
Marilou Gagnon -
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
Audre Lorde -
“People who cause harm are often also survivors of harm. If we want to address the roots of violence, we have to honour both truths.”
Danielle Sered -
“Boundaries help me to give all that I can and still come back tomorrow.”
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"One of the problems that arises with the term “people who use drugs” is that it is intentionally pluralistic in its embrace of ALL people who use drugs—from recreationally to deeply problematically. This makes using it to talk about the things that especially impact people who are using drugs problematically very difficult. "
-
"If you question harm reduction works, I can’t help but wonder if you have ever actually seen what happens in these spaces. We promote health safety and dignity, and it works. It is simple, beautiful and changes peoples lives."
Haven Wheelock -
"We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes."
Fred Rogers -
"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. -
"Between an uncontrolled escalation and passivity, there is a demanding road of responsibility that we must follow. "
Dominique de Villepin -
“Identify five things that you can see, four things that you can touch, three things that you can hear, two things that you can smell and one thing that you can taste.”
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"Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free."
Thich Nhat Hanh -
"The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma."
Judith Lewis Herman -
"We have to be ready and able to reach clients where they are, not where we want them to be”
-
"Opponent’s of syringe service programs and harm reduction in general typically remark that it “sends the wrong message.” The message they are referring to is, “We love you and want you to be safe.”
Christopher Abert -
"Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone."
Fred Rogers -
“In general, it is antithetical to harm reduction best practices to call the police except under the most extreme life-or-death circumstances.”
-
"Not all traumas are the result of what happened to you; some are the result of what didn’t happen for you"
Gabor Maté -
“The bottom line is that overdose prevention sites — which exist in more than 100 cities around the world — offer compassion for fellow human beings,”
Mayor Jim Kenney -
We need to play that game where we require politicians to finish every sentence denouncing supervised injection facilities with the phrase, “and that is why I think injecting alone in a McDonald’s bathroom is better.”
Jonathan Giftos -
"We don’t need to professionalize the people closest to the crisis. We need to recognise them as professionals already.”
Jules Netherland -
“As always, be transparent with participants about what you have, what you don't have, and/or what's for only special populations.”
- “Many of the harm reduction leaders interviewed talked about the importance of not having too many policies and involving your participants in the development of policies—especially those that impact them directly.”
- "One of the most important things we can do as advocates is to define & make concrete the vague terms used by politicians. What does it mean to “take a public health approach”? What you mean when you say “treatment”? Politicians rarely know. Our job is to make it plain for them."
- “One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”
- “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
- "Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone."
- "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
- "There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do."
- "I describe my experiences as a nurse volunteer at the overdose prevention site as “being in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.” And that’s exactly where I want to be as a nurse: working outside the system to make a real difference in people’s lives, showing up in the community when it matters most and challenging rules that directly contribute to the overdose crisis, and exposing government inaction by being part of the solution on the ground. For me, this is what nursing is all about."
- “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
- “People who cause harm are often also survivors of harm. If we want to address the roots of violence, we have to honour both truths.”
- “Boundaries help me to give all that I can and still come back tomorrow.”
- "One of the problems that arises with the term “people who use drugs” is that it is intentionally pluralistic in its embrace of ALL people who use drugs—from recreationally to deeply problematically. This makes using it to talk about the things that especially impact people who are using drugs problematically very difficult. "
- "If you question harm reduction works, I can’t help but wonder if you have ever actually seen what happens in these spaces. We promote health safety and dignity, and it works. It is simple, beautiful and changes peoples lives."
- "We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes."
- "What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."
- "Between an uncontrolled escalation and passivity, there is a demanding road of responsibility that we must follow. "
- “Identify five things that you can see, four things that you can touch, three things that you can hear, two things that you can smell and one thing that you can taste.”
- "Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free."
- "The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma."
- "We have to be ready and able to reach clients where they are, not where we want them to be”
- "Opponent’s of syringe service programs and harm reduction in general typically remark that it “sends the wrong message.” The message they are referring to is, “We love you and want you to be safe.”
- "Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone."
- “In general, it is antithetical to harm reduction best practices to call the police except under the most extreme life-or-death circumstances.”
- "Not all traumas are the result of what happened to you; some are the result of what didn’t happen for you"
- “The bottom line is that overdose prevention sites — which exist in more than 100 cities around the world — offer compassion for fellow human beings,”
- We need to play that game where we require politicians to finish every sentence denouncing supervised injection facilities with the phrase, “and that is why I think injecting alone in a McDonald’s bathroom is better.”
- "We don’t need to professionalize the people closest to the crisis. We need to recognise them as professionals already.”
- “As always, be transparent with participants about what you have, what you don't have, and/or what's for only special populations.”