Santa Cruz crews find hundreds of needles at Ross Camp

Depending on what agency you ask, cleanup crews in Santa Cruz are finding hundreds or even thousands of needles all over the ground on the former Gateway homeless encampment.

“I wish there were zero, but it would be hard to say that we would not have any litter,” said Denise Elerick, an activist with Harm Reduction Services.

In the week before the camp closed, Elerick and volunteers with HRS say they removed over 9,000 needles at the site.

“There had to have been hundreds of thousands of syringes used at that camp in the last several months,” said Elerick.

Part of the reason for that number: Elerick and her group passed out clean needles to Ross Camp residents every week starting in November. According to health departments around the world, when people use clean needles for drug use as opposed to reusing old ones, it prevents diseases from spreading.

“We’re not having a conversation about an HIV outbreak over the past three months, so that’s a good thing,” said Elerick.

Of course, for many other residents in Santa Cruz, who find used needles popping up in their neighborhoods and parks, Elerick’s efforts are only confounding the problem.

“Just giving out needles is not helping, I don’t think, in the big picture. But if we are going to give out needles, I’d rather it be the county giving them out than just some volunteer group that’s not very well-regulated,” said Charles May, a Santa Cruz resident.

Elerick says she hands out as many syringes as people need because she believes Santa Cruz County’s one-for-one needle exchange program does not work for everyone, including people just out of jail.

“They can’t really go to the clinic and utilize it because they don’t have anything to turn in, so that puts that individual at risk and our county public health at risk,” said Elerick.

She hopes to one day see no needles anywhere, but until then, she believes expanding her service to other locations will only benefit those who need it.