audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - As heroin addiction rises across the U.S., Ohio has become an epicenter of the crisis, with the corridor between Cincinnati and Dayton hit especially hard. According to there CDC, nearly 1,000 people in Ohio alone died from overdosing on heroin in 2013, it was a 41 percent increase from the prior year, and there are few signs the crisis is slowing. People of all races and classes are turning to the highly addictive drug, which has replaced painkillers as the drug of choice. It is cheaper and easier to buy; in some areas, residents say their neighbors deal it out of their windows. Addicts are all races and classes but the most visible are young white women, partly because they often become street prostitutes to support their illness. But incredibly sad and dark stories are found across Hamilton and Butler counties, the district of former House Speaker John Boehner: couples giving up their babies to stay high, young women and grandmothers who prostitute themselves dozens of times a day to make money to buy hits. Seeing the devastation, some local churches have jumped in to offer a haven for desperate addicts in some of the most violent neighborhoods of America.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 18, 2015 - Lebanon, Ohio, U.S. - JEFF SHEPARD, 41, a recovering heroin addict, prays during Sunday worship at Solid Rock church, which has devoted its ministry to helping addicts. It is in Lebanon, where heroin addiction is on the rise. Shepard struggled with heroin addiction for years, and has been sober now for six months, with one relapse two months ago when he won a minor lottery.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 18, 2015 - Hamilton, Ohio, US - TARA, a mother of five and heroin addict, uses the string of her hoodie to tie around her arm in search of a vein to shoot heroin. She often sleeps in the alley near the home where two of her young children live with their father in the South Side of Hamilton, an impoverished area known to locals as ''The Hood.'' She has lost three other children to the social services system.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 20, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - SHALONDA 'SHONDA' STRANGE -a 31-year-old heroin addict, prostitute and mother of two--hits the streets one more time in the Lower Price Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, an epicenter of a growing heroin crisis across the U.S. She is trying to earn money from tricks to pay for her heroin addiction.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 13, 2015 - Cincinati, Ohio, U.S. - As he does every day, JEFF SHEPARD, a recovering heroin addict, prays before starting his daily activities.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 17, 2015 - Hamilton, Ohio, U.S. - KRYSTAL HATFIELD, 28, a heroin addict, injects her daily fix of the drug on the back porch of an abandoned house in the East Side of Hamilton, an epicenter of the heroin epidemic in the U.S. A mother of two, Hatfield had her first child at 14 and the second at 16. She says she uses drugs in part to cover the pain of her childhood, when she was molested by a cousin from the age of 4 to 11. She also explains that 'people get bored.' She makes money by performing phone sex for an old truck driver-her 'sugar daddy'.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 20, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - CANDACE GREENE, 33, a prostitute and heroin addict, needs to have at least 10 customers every day to pay for her heroin addiction. Greene, a former nurse, began using and selling oxycontin after she broke her ankle in her 20s, then moved to heroin, which she found to be cheaper and easier to acquire.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 20, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - CANDACE GREENE, 33, a former nurse who is now a heroin-addicted prostitute, waits on the street for customers in the McMicken neighborhood, near downtown Cincinnati, an epicenter of a growing heroin crisis in the U.S. Candace says in her early 20s, she began selling and using oxycontin she acquired from her nursing job. A cousin told her heroin was a cheaper, so she began using heroin. She has three kids who are in the legal custody of her sister. Candace is homeless, and lives in an abandoned building.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 20, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - The men of Storrs Street, the heart of Lower Price Hill neighborhood in Cincinnati, an epicenter of a growing heroin crisis across the U.S. Considered one of the most violent three blocks in the country, the street comes to life at dusk, when hundreds of heroin dealers-known as 'dope boys'-come out for business. Most are independent dealers and armed, and they compete for the stream of customers who drive and walk by all night long.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 20, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - SHALONDA 'SHONDA' STRANGE, a 31-year-old heroin addict, prostitute, and mother of two, walks toward the abandoned building where she's lived for the past year in a basement room with six others, all heroin addicts and squatters. She says she has overdosed five times, and tried rehab at least five times, but it has never worked. She was raised by her grandmother in the Upper Price Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, an epicenter of a growing heroin crisis across the U.S.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 10, 2015 - Wilmington, Ohio, U.S. - NICK VAMOS, 20, who said he was a heroin addict for two years before becoming sober 22 days ago with the help of Jesus Christ, worships at the final 'Hope Over Heroin' concert. With Ohio at the epicenter of a national heroin crisis, two musician-preachers, Billy Price and Lawrence Bishop II, began the concert series to minister to addicts and their families with music, clinical and spiritual resources - what the preachers call the 'power of Jesus' to break addiction.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 10, 2015 - Wilmington, Ohio, U.S. - Pastor BILLY PRICE, left, and LAWRENCE BISHOP II, right, rock out at the final 'Hope Over Heroin' concert. With Ohio at the epicenter of a national heroin crisis, the two preacher-musicians began the concert series last year to minister to addicts and their families with music, clinical and spiritual resourcesâ what they call the 'power of Jesus' to break addiction. Price's church, City On A Hill, is in Hamilton County, where heroin deaths have increased 183 percent since 2005.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 10, 2015 - Wilmington, Ohio, U.S. - MONTEZZ WILLIAMS, 25, prays during an emotional concert for heroin addicts put on by two pastors from the Cincinnati area. Their band, Livestock, uses music and an emotional religious message to reach addicts who have often tried and failed at rehab. Williams, of Dayton, said he has been sober 40 days so far after being addicted to heroin for four years.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 11, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - Pastor BILLY PRICE prays with SCOTT KRIK, a recovering heroin addict, at his church, City on a Hill, where heroin addiction and overdose deaths are rampant. Price devoted his ministry to helping heroin addicts after seeing a local sheriff on the news pleading for help after a spate of overdose deaths.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 16, 2015 - Hamilton, Ohio, U.S. - The youngest of 10 children, SALEHA YOUNG, 33, is high after snorting heroin in the garage of her mother's house. She says she was 'spoiled' as a child and had a middle-class upbringing when a boyfriend introduced her to heroin at the age of 17. She has a 12-year-old daughter who lives with her and her mother in the East Side of Hamilton, an epicenter of the heroin crisis across the U.S.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 19, 2015 - Hamilton, Ohio, U.S. - SALEHA YOUNG, a heroin addict, is trying her best to be some sort of example to her daughter SAMANTHA, 12, who knows of her mother's struggles. Saleha's way of keeping her addiction at bay is to limit the drug each day, which she snorts, rather than injects, which she says produces a milder high. She says Samantha's father introduced her to heroin at the age of 17. After 13 years in a downward spiral of violence, they divorced and now she lives with her mother in the East Side of Hamilton, an epicenter of the national heroin epidemic.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 20, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - SHERRY SAMS, 41, a heroin addict who has lost four children to the social service system, sits at her favorite spot, a vacant building along State Street and Dutton Avenue, where she works as a prostitute for drug money. The spot is in the crime infected Lower Price Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, an epicenter of a growing heroin crisis across the U.S. Sams says she has tried several drug rehab programs, but has been unable to succeed. She says part of the problem is that heroin withdrawal is extremely painful, and so the drug becomes like a medication.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 11, 2015 - Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. - Pastor BILLY PRICE talks to EVAN PFIERMAN, 6, whose parents are heroin addicts. Evan asked his grandmother to bring him to the church, City on a Hill, which he had heard helps addicts.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Oct. 21, 2015 - Cincinati, Ohio, U.S. - Pastor BILLY PRICE attempts to cast Satan out of CHASITY HOLT, 36, a heroin addict who showed up at his church that night saying that she had overdosed only the day before. As a heroin epidemic spreads in Ohio, many addicts are desperate for help and turning to religion as a last resort after failing to find rehab programs.'I've died a couple of times... to us it's just normal,'' said Chasity, a mother of five. Price has devoted his ministry, City on a Hill church, to helping heroin addicts in the Cincinnati, area, where heroin use is rampant, part of a growing epidemic across the U.S.
© Miguel Juarez Lugo/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press