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WHEREAS, Prevention Point Pittsburgh (PPP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing health empowerment services to injection drug users. PPP is committed to delivering harm reduction services to individuals who use drugs in a compassionate, low-threshold, and empowering manner, and;
WHEREAS, PPP is deeply rooted in a concern for the well-being of not only their clients, but the general health of the entire community, and;
WHEREAS, PPP was founded in May of 1995 when Caroline Acker, James Crow, and a handful of volunteers began distributing sterile injection equipment from a card table in the Uptown neighborhood of Pittsburgh to prevent the spread of injection-related blood-borne disease, and;
WHEREAS, the program received formal approval from Allegheny County in 2002, when PPP established a county-authorized needle exchange site in Oakland, later expanding to three service locations in Oakland, the Hill District, and Perry Hilltop where they currently operate, and;
WHEREAS, PPP also offers health promotion and risk reduction counseling, access to safer sex materials and ancillary injection equipment, case management, medical waste disposal, and testing for sexually transmitted infections and blood-borne diseases, and;
WHEREAS, PPP serves more than 5,000 individuals annually, providing various types of technical assistance regarding best practices for harm reduction programs and services, and with over 100 entities in the region receiving training in the last year alone, and;
WHEREAS, PPP has been the sole provider of legal syringe access services in Western Pennsylvania for two decades, and is the largest provider of community-based overdose prevention training and free naloxone distribution services in the region, and;
WHEREAS, on April 16, 2016, PPP will be commemorating its 20th anniversary of serving the region with these very essential services, and;
WHEREAS, the opioid epidemic has touched the lives of countless families in neighborhoods across the City of Pittsburgh and the entire region, and;
WHEREAS, PPP provides an entry point for those battling opioid addiction to get the assistance they need to move forward with their lives by providing them with the information necessary to pursue treatment, and;
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NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the Council of the City of Pittsburgh thanks Prevention Point Pittsburgh and all those who have served their mission for their work during the last 20 years, and;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the Council of the City of Pittsburgh does hereby declare April 16, 2016 to be “Prevention Point Pittsburgh Day” in the City of Pittsburgh.