Narcan Vending Machine Lands Outside Sunrise Navigation Center

A week after being unveiled, the Narcan vending machine at Sunrise Navigation Center was already emptied. It's since been restocked. (courtesy of Sunrise Navigation Center)

As of last week, you can now get Narcan, a lifesaving overdose­-reversal drug, for free 24/7 from a small vending machine outside the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center at 4430 Menchaca Rd. The machine is the culmination of two years of labor by Em Gray, director of the NICE (Narcan in Case of Emergency) Project, funded by a $2,500 grant from Austin Mutual Aid in 2021. Now, as access to Narcan has become more scarce amidst a national and local opioid crisis, it's finally operational, with a second larger one coming soon to the Sahara Lounge.

Narcan, the brand version of naloxone, varies from $35 as a nasal spray to $70 as an intravenous syringe and usually requires a prescription, and it used to be easy to come by, says Sunrise's Mark Hilbelink; in 2020 "there was so much of it that it was expiring." Since then, Sunrise has gone months with none on hand, "and even now, we're getting maybe a case a week, which is like 30 doses. We serve 300 people a day." The situation is gradually improving in response to the severity of the crisis, as More Narcan Please, a distribution project through UT Health San Antonio funded by Texas Targeted Opioid Response state grants, recently reopened applications after it ran out of money in January. One of the challenges, says Hilbelink, is getting the drug into people's hands. State-supplied Narcan usually goes through emergency services channels like police and EMS, but many in the harm reduction community say it should be distributed more widely: "The only legal recourse drug users currently have is a Band-Aid solution – used only after someone has ingested an opioid at a dose that their breathing has slowed or stopped," says Gray. "Showing people the dignity to stay alive is not an innovative idea – just an innovative practice when drug use is looked upon with so much judgment and stigma."

Free Narcan vending machines have proven successful in Philadelphia, Las Vegas, San Diego, Ann Arbor, and other cities, but this is Texas' first, according to Sunrise. Gray says she picked the first location because of its neutral reputation as a place "that people didn't have bad experiences at," unlike some medical or recovery spaces. Sunrise also serves about 5,000 unhoused people every year and already has systems in place to connect people to recovery programs should they so choose. The new machine has capacity for 70 doses, and Gray has already had to restock it, after it emptied completely Monday. She uses a combination of supply from Texas Overdose Naloxone Initiative, More Narcan Please, and Drug User Unions, among others in the harm reduction community. New funding and supply will also be coming to Sunrise soon as a result of Travis County's recent public health emergency declaration of an overdose crisis.

"Travis County cleared a lot of funding, but it's taken a while to hit. In theory, there should be more rolling out in September or October," says Hilbelink. Sunrise will also get a full-time harm reduction employee, with another going to The Other Ones Foundation and a part-time one for Communi­ties for Recovery. The county is partnering with these orgs and Texas Harm Reduction Alliance to distribute Narcan and safe injection supplies, which Hilbelink says is unprecedented, and important for advancing the whole-person care model, which enmeshes mental health care, housing, and medical care with harm reduction. "The beautiful thing that happened around this is not even the money," he says. "It's just the example of what it looks like for harm reduction and sobriety and housing organizations and shelter organizations to be at the table together."