COVINGTON, Ky — A Covington-based nonprofit is working to make life-saving supplies more accessible across Kentucky, particularly for LGBTQ+ communities that face barriers to care.
Queer Kentucky has placed 12 special lockers at businesses throughout the state, with six located in Northern Kentucky, providing free access to harm reduction supplies such as HIV self-testing kits, pregnancy tests, naloxone, condoms, sunscreen and aloe.
"We were able to get some funding about two years ago to do more stories around queer mental health and how that kind of ties to different issues, including substance use," said Missy Spears, executive director of Queer Kentucky.
The lockers fill a need as resources for substance use treatment become increasingly scarce in the state.
"(We're) hearing from folks that they are having trouble getting help for substance use. A lot of the funding for the programming around the state has gone away this year, so folks can't as easily get harm reduction supplies to keep them safe, or get recovery services when they need to," said Spears.
One of the lockers can be found at Roebling Books and Coffee Shop in Covington and Newport, where community members can discreetly access supplies.
Local nonprofit installs harm reduction lockers across Kentucky as a solution to save lives:
"We have double-dose boxes of generic Narcan, naloxone. We recommend everyone take a full box so they have two doses. We also have at-home HIV test kits," said Spears.
According to the latest Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report, more than 1,400 Kentuckians died from overdoses in 2024, representing a 30% decrease from the previous year.
The organization strategically placed the lockers in locations where they could serve multiple vulnerable populations. A few other locations include Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar and OLLA Taqueria in Northern Kentucky.
"Some of the coffee shops, we picked ones near a high school where students don't have access to safer sex supplies. This coffee shop here, there are a lot of LGBTQ people who come here, as well as unhoused, so we're able to help a couple of different priority locations," said Spears.
Borden Gewin, a local bartender, knows firsthand how important access to these supplies can be.
"I've had to administer Narcan before, not on guests, but on pedestrians in the neighborhood, various places I've worked," said Gewin. "And having centralized locations to have Narcan and test strips and the like can only be a benefit for the whole community."
Despite concerns about potential stigma, the community response has been overwhelmingly positive.
"We were really prepared to overcome a lot of stigma that's in this world. And it was incredible that people were just happy to get people supplies to keep them going," said Spears.
