A place that is their own: Understanding a gender-specific safer-use space as a therapeutic landscape

Safer-Use Spaces are recognized as one of the most effective ways to reduce the harms associated with the opioid and toxic drug crisis. This study performed an analysis of a gender-specific safer-use space in Hamilton, Ontario, using the therapeutic landscapes conceptual framework. We conducted eight in-depth one-on-one interviews with staff at the site, asking what parts of the social, built, and symbolic environments encouraged people who use drugs to return to the site. The thematic analysis found that the practicality and safety offered by the site, the control and agency felt by the clientele, and the ways in which clientele find sanctuary and oasis were valued by the clients. The study concludes with remarks on the importance of creating gender-specific, accessible, and empowering harm-reducing services for people who use drugs. • Importance of built, social and symbolic demedicalization in increasing access to harm reduction. • Importance of client-lead approaches to foster belonging and return to safer-use spaces. • Importance of holistically addressing needs of clients to support effective harm reduction.