SAVE AUSTIN NOW JOINS NORTH AMERICA RECOVERS, NEW COALITION LAUNCHED TO ADDRESS HOMELESSNESS, ADDICTION Urges President Biden to Stop Government Funded Drug Sites

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 24, 2023

SAVE AUSTIN NOW JOINS NORTH AMERICA RECOVERS, NEW COALITION LAUNCHED TO ADDRESS HOMELESSNESS, ADDICTION
Urges President Biden to Stop Government Funded Drug Sites

AUSTIN, TX — Nonpartisan Save Austin Now PAC today announced it has joined a new coalition called North America Recovers, which is made up of dozens of grassroots leaders, policy experts and nonprofit executives from the U.S. and Canada who have united to push back on destructive policies destroying our cities and instead advocated for proven solutions to homelessness and drug addiction. The coalition spent two full days together in Seattle in January 6-8 to align on policy proposals and strategic objectives.
 
“Save Austin Now will keep its focus on improving standard of living in our city for all residents, especially in the policy areas of homelessness and public safety,” said Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek. “There is good and inspiring work being done in many other cities and we want to learn from it. We hope this coalition can fight the good fight and turn the tide in our failing major North American cities. This will require both compassion and honesty, with a focus on recovery and rejection of policies that incentivize addiction and misery. We can restore safety to our cities while improving the lives of the least fortunate among us.”
 
On Monday this new coalition announced formation.

Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths and 21 other organizations focused on addiction, mental illness, and homelessness are urging President Biden to “Stop Government Drug Sites” and order the Department of Justice not to grant Philadelphia and other cities, which are seeking waivers so they can operate supervised drug-use sites without violating federal law.
 
The coalition launched an advertising campaign on Monday in Washington, D.C. and with mobile billboards with a photo of a mother of a homeless fentanyl addict that reads, “Please Help My Son Escape Addiction the Way You Helped Hunter.”
 
The ads are aimed at convincing Biden and his Department of Justice (DoJ) to not allow “supervised drug consumption sites,” where taxpayer-funded healthcare workers assist anyone over 18 to inject or smoke fentanyl and other hard drugs. In response to a lawsuit by a group in Philadelphia that wants to open a drug-use site, the Justice Department said in early December that it would make a decision by early February.
 
“We as a coalition urge President Biden to reject these sites in favor of first creating a recovery-focused system for addressing our addiction crisis,” the Coalition said in a statement on the organization’s new website, NorthAmericaRecovers.org. “This means we must allocate sufficient funding for evidence-based intervention, treatment, and recovery programs.”
 
One of the laws Biden is considering not enforcing is a 1986 "crackhouse statute,” which Biden cosponsored as Senator, and which made it illegal to “knowingly open, lease, rent, use or maintain any place, whether permanently or temporarily, for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing or using any controlled substance.”
 
To learn more about North America Recovers, please visit http://www.NorthAmericaReocvers.org.
 
To learn more about Save Austin Now PAC, please visit http://www.SaveAustinNowPAC.com.
 
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