The problems with heroin addiction are far reaching these days and one public agency has a new way to deal with one of them trying to keep people safe from dirty needles left behind.
"When I did heroin, I had a place to live," Bernice Arruda explained.
She spoke with FOX25 along a stretch of Boylston Street, where she's been for years as a result of heroin addiction.
"It's scary, you don't know what's going to happen to you," Arruda said, crying.
She recalls discarding needles wherever she could, including around the public library where she now panhandles.
"I mean, just because it's there I guess," Arruda said when asked why she would dump them in the library.
Library officials said they find a needle in the library at least once a week, which is why the staff now has boxes in all city libraries to collect needles left in or around the building.
They also offer training for employees to look for signs of people who've overdosed.
"It's not just a big city thing," Jennifer Inglis said. "This is a problem everywhere and I think libraries are definitely places where the staff in libraries are very aware of what's happening in the community because we relate with our community so well."
But perhaps it's a little surprising for frequent library visitors like Randell Herbin and a sign of just how serious the opioid problem is.
"You have to look at where they frequent," Herbin said. "There are the main areas and then the side streets, the back of buildings, back of restaurants."
"You have to want to stop," Arruda said. "Because if you don't want to stop, you're not going to stop.
The needle boxes are not kept in public areas. The program initially started in 2014.
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