CHR Executive Director Lu Funk once again joined Mike Thornton on KBRP Radio to talk about how CHR has evolved since their last visit. Working in rural Cochise County, where distance, isolation, and limited transportation shape nearly every service encounter, Lu described the barriers participants face: “There’s just so many structural barriers, especially in a rural community, where even if someone wants to be engaged in treatment services or any kind of services, it can be really difficult.” That reality is part of why CHR’s model is built around bringing care to people, rather than asking them to work through a maze of barriers.
Lu’s approach has always been participant-centered. “The provider is the one who needs to figure out how to meet that person where they’re at,” Lu said, adding that CHR’s “one-stop shop” model helps people address multiple needs in a single visit: “People can take time out of their days, access CHR, and they’re addressing so many different needs in that one service engagement.” The organization’s work is shaped by a simple but powerful belief: “It’s fundamentally about community, it’s about relationship, and it’s about reducing stigma.” In practice, that means mobile outreach, low-barrier services, and a willingness to respond to people’s needs as they are, not as a system says they should be.
Delving into the larger stakes of harm reduction, especially the ways policy can either support people or push them further to the margins, Mike Thornton reflected on the “disruptive architecture” he encountered while working with unhoused and low-income people in Reno. He remembers loud music being played to prevent rest, jagged rocks placed to keep people from sitting, “And the whole idea is just move them along,” he said, “and then pretty soon you move people from here to here, and then from there to there. And then it’s like, and then eventually like to where, right?”
Against that backdrop, the interview underscored a simple truth: in a time when harm reduction is still widely misunderstood, two harm reductionists offers a clear reminder that the work is not abstract; it is practical, relational, and rooted in the everyday reality of people trying to survive and stay connected.
Original Air Date: May 8th, 2026