About Us

Mission and History

The Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction (HACHR) is committed to building stronger, healthier communities by co-creating spaces that foster dignity, equity, and choice. Founded in 2014, by Brandie Wilson, HACHR has spent over a decade improving the health, wellness, and survival of people who use drugs, are experiencing homelessness, or engage in survival sex work in the rural area of Northern California’s Humboldt County, through advocacy, overdose prevention education, and harm reduction services. In addition to our harm reduction resource kits, our services include syringe access, naloxone training and distribution, linkage to low-barrier Medication Assisted Treatment, case management and wrap-around services, basic needs support, and more. We are a peer-led organization staffed by people with lived and living experience shared with the people that we serve. HACHR works to save lives in our community, distributing over 18,600 doses of naloxone leading to at least 959 overdose reversals over the course of 2024. In a 2021 participant survey, over 50% of our participants say that HACHR is the only place they feel welcome and safe accessing services. 

HACHR is dedicated to approaching harm reduction from a model centered around autonomy. Our intention is to meet and provide for people where they are at, both literally and with regard to their individual needs and capacities. We understand that substance use exists on a wide and varied spectrum, and expect people to make their own informed choices on how to practice harm reduction in their lives. Our goal is to provide people with the essential resources they need to address their basic needs and engage with their substance use autonomously in the manner that best ensures their health, wellness, and access to care.