A battle over safe injection sites reached a boiling point in lower Manhattan on Thursday. 

Police said at least 17 people were arrested during an overdose awareness rally outside the office of Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who, just days earlier, threatened to close two overdose prevention centers in Washington Heights and East Harlem.

Williams told the New York Times that the city’s two safe injection sites are operating illegally, saying, "My office is prepared to exercise all options — including enforcement — if this situation does not change in short order.”

The nonprofit organization Housing Works, which organized Thursday’s protest, has condemned Williams’ threat — and is calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to instead open more overdose prevention centers.

"Overdoses are preventable and reversible. People don't have to die," said Seth Pollack, the director of advocacy at Housing Works.

"These are places where people can use drugs safely with medical assistants if they need it, but unfortunately they're in a legal grey area that the governor could end any day she wanted to," Pollack added. 

Overdose prevention centers provide a safe space for people to bring and use their own drugs. Trained staff provide sterile supplies, and intervene if an overdose occurs. Drug users are also connected with addiction services, support groups and voluntary treatment.

"They've reversed over 1,000 overdoses in two years. They work," Pollack said. "We're not asking for something radical or new. We're just asking for them to be expanded across the state, because overdose deaths have only increased since COVID began."

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, people who inject drugs are much less likely to share needles if they use supervised injection sites, which could help reduce the rate of HIV.

"We know this issue deeply, we feel this issue deeply and we feel that it's past time that the governor act," Pollack said. 

Some residents who live near the sites say drug use is still running rampant.

"It makes us look so bad," a resident who lives across the street from the East Harlem safe injection site told NY1. "Wherever you turn, somebody's either shooting, smoking, and it's bad for the community."

Earlier this week, Hochul announced an $8 million investment in harm reduction strategies for people most vulnerable to overdoses.