Global Courant 2023-05-10 23:20:15
Members of a Los Angeles nonprofit who have received state funding in the past were seen handing out new meth pipes to the homeless living on Skid Row, according to a local report, angering some members of the community.
Homeless Health Care Los Angeles workers were captured on video by a resident of the neighborhood handing out the paraphernalia as they drove around in a golf cart. FOX11 Los Angeles reported.
Tony Anthony, the resident who recorded the video, told the station he was shocked this was happening in his neighborhood, arguing that passing out just encourages addicts to get high.
“When you walk down Skid Row and see the people who are on methamphetamine… and have sores all over their bodies, their teeth are falling out, bumps all over their faces, running down the street naked, that’s not safety. They don’t I must come here and hand out these glass pipes,’ he said.
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Clean glass pipes for methamphetamine, as seen above, were distributed by a nonprofit in the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, according to a local report. (Reuters/David Ryder)
According to public tax records obtained by the station, the nonprofit received $5.7 million in government funding in 2016. Funding was increased to $11.9 million in 2019, the report said.
In the U.S., methamphetamine overdose deaths nearly tripled between 2015 and 2019 among people ages 18 to 64, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health.
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While some residents expressed outrage at the broken pipes littering the streets of Skid Row, others said handing out clean pipes could save lives.
A man identified only as “Catfish” told the station that picking up the wrong pipe or wrong needle could kill and that handing out clean paraphernalia kept addicts alive.
Officials from the nonprofit organization declined to comment to the station.
