Delaware has five new vending machines that will offer lifesaving medicine as well as self-care items for free.

Two of these new vending machines are located at the Brandywine Counseling Facility on Lancaster Avenue in Wilmington and the facility in Newark. They are completely free to use and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The vending machines will offer an assortment of items such as Naloxone kits, Xylazine test strips, Deterra bags, wound care kits, items to help with physical and dental hygiene, and other self-care tools.

This is part of a pilot program in the state.

“Yes, we are early compared to our sister states, 100% we are early adopters to it. We are really excited about it, and we want to be an example,” Rebecca Urey, Harm Reduction Coordinator in Delaware, said.

In addition to a harm reduction vending machine in Wilmington and the one at the Brandywine Counseling facility, there are three others.

The vending machines will be placed at four Brandywine Counseling locations, as well as the Georgetown Pallet Village.

Brandywine Counseling Locations:

• 2713 Lancaster Ave, Wilmington, Del. 19805
• 24 Brookhill Drive, Newark, Del. 19702
• 698 S. Bay Road Dover, Del. 19901
• 769 E. Masten Circle, Milford, Del. 19963

Pallet Village location:

• Springboard Pallet Village, 411 Kimmey Street, Georgetown, Del. 19947

The one in Dover is the first to be stocked and the others are expected to be ready in the next day or so.

David Humes lost his son to an overdose and is now an addiction advocate who has been working hard to help other parents be aware of how overdose kits work.

“The naloxone you find in these kits ideally are for a dumb dad like me to administer. What we want to do is just get that person breathing again, call 911 and hopefully first responders will be there to take care of that person in medical distress,” Humes said.

Using the vending machines is a completely anonymous process, the state will only see a record of what products are being used so they can restock them.

“Despite how far we’ve come with this there’s still a huge stigma. There’s stigma about the person in use and stigma about his parents and loved ones,” Humes said.

The one in Dover is already being used and Delaware health officials say if the pilot program is a success more vending machines could be added around the state.

“Whether it’s 12 p.m. or 3 a.m., these new vending machine sites are essential to removing the stigma around receiving critical, lifesaving supplies,” said Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long, Chair of the Behavioral Health Consortium, in a statement. “These are important tools in the toolkit to save lives and meet folks where they are. Substance use disorder is a disease. I’m so proud of Delaware for modeling the way we should treat our residents with respect and dignity and ensure their success in all aspects of life.”

Investigators are trying to learn the identity and cause of death of a man found Sunday in the Christina River section that cuts through Wilmington’s Riverfront area.

Wilmington officers were dispatched to the 600 block of Justison St. after receiving a call about 12:25 p.m. regarding a possible dead person in the river, said David Karas, a police spokesperson.

More: Trolley Square hit-and-run injures 3 women in Wilmington

After officers removed the body from the river, they turned it over to the Delaware Division of Forensic Sciences for further investigation and to confirm identity, Karas said.

Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.

The median home in Delaware County listed for $160,750 in October, down 13.1% from the previous month’s $184,900, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows.

Compared to October 2023, the median home list price increased 5.4% from $152,475.

The statistics in this article only pertain to houses listed for sale in Delaware County, not houses that were sold. Information on your local housing market, along with other useful community data, is available at data.thestarpress.com. 

Delaware County’s median home was 1,638 square feet, listed at $112 per square foot. The price per square foot of homes for sale is up 19.6% from October 2023.

Listings in Delaware County moved briskly, at a median 44 days listed compared to the October national median of 58 days on the market. In the previous month, homes had a median of 42 days on the market. Around 130 homes were newly listed on the market in October, a 16.1% increase from 112 new listings in October 2023. 

The median home prices issued by Realtor.com may exclude many, or even most, of a market’s homes. The price and volume represent only single-family homes, condominiums or townhomes. They include existing homes, but exclude most new construction as well as pending and contingent sales.

Across the Muncie metro area, median home prices fell to $160,375, down 0.1% from a month earlier. The median home had 1,637 square feet, at a list price of $112 per square foot.

In Indiana, median home prices were $290,750, a slight decrease from September. The median Indiana home listed for sale had 1,912 square feet, with a price of $153 per square foot. 

Throughout the United States, the median home price was $424,950, a slight decrease from the month prior. The median American home for sale was listed at 1,835 square feet, with a price of $226 per square foot. 

The median home list price used in this report represents the midway point of all the houses or units listed over the given period of time. Experts say the median offers a more accurate view of what’s happening in a market than the average list price, which would mean taking the sum of all listing prices then dividing by the number of homes sold. The average can be skewed by one particularly low or high price.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Realtor.com. Please leave any feedback or corrections for this story here. This story was written by Ozge Terzioglu.