D.C.’s Leading Clean-Needle Charity to Close
February 11, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
The biggest provider of clean needles to drug addicts in Washington, D.C., the city with the nation’s highest HIV/AIDS rate, will close by the end of the month, reports The Washington Post.
Declining donations, delays in securing city funds, and recent high turnover of top managers contributed to the demise of PreventionWorks, said Michael Rhein, the organization’s president.
The 12-year-old charity supplies about one-third of the free needles distributed in the city and handed out about 100,000 sterile syringes last year to help stem the spread of HIV and AIDS, which afflict at least 3 percent of Washington residents.
