We lead with compassion, acceptance, and love.

PRP is an outreach organization dedicated to serving those who are affected by stigma and harm by providing quality care.

Our Services

Supporting health and dignity with syringe services, safe use kits, meals, clothing, and soon, mobile showers, all based on community needs.

Safer Use Kits, including Smoking Kits and Snorting Kits

We provide injection alternative kits for participants. These include smoking and snorting kits, which can be a less harmful way to use some drugs.

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Supplies by Request

Our participants know what they need best! We take requests for special items that we might not think of on our own or regularly carry – such as tarps, hand sanitizer, batteries, containers, medicine, and other necessities.

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Meal Assistance

Meal assistance is where we began! Everyone deserves a hot meal.

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Access to Showers

Shower Connect, our new mobile shower unit, will visit encampments around the city and offer an 8-minute hot, refreshing shower to any participant who wants one.

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Clothing Assistance

We collect and distribute clothing necessities, especially to combat the brutal Chicago winter.

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Syringe Service Program

We distribute new and collect used syringes for our participants. Syringe service programs reduce the transmission of illnesses and allow for safer use.

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Our Impact

As of 1/1/2022 – 3/3/2024

safer sex supplies distributed
5803
injection alternative kits distributed
20440
meals distributed
4650

About Us

The Puerto Rico Project began when Melissa Hernandez started distributing food to unhoused folks in Chicago with her two sons. Through her interactions with this community, she realized that the need ran much deeper than food. Melissa encountered people experiencing human trafficking, fatal drug overdose, and gruesome human rights violations among people who use drugs (PWUD). Recognizing that far too often, people who are unhoused are overlooked by the rest of society, Melissa decided to make a change. Through Melissa’s own experiences with some of these issues, she built The Puerto Rico Project to serve the underserved with dignity, compassion, and respect. The Puerto Rico Project exists to meet the basic, human needs of individuals impacted by stigma and harm. 

In The News

“Harm reduction is not just meeting people where they’re at and showing up with compassion and empathy; harm reduction also means access to quality care, access to housing, access to basic needs.”
"I ran across a population that was neglected and lost and didn’t have an idea on where to go for help. It was then that I made it a mission to help in any and every way possible."
My heart is with the community. I’d like to lift their voices up.


Our Sponsors