Neighbors Petition to Stop Methadone Clinic

Four hundred and fifty people have signed their names in opposition to a methadone clinic’s planned move to Newhallville, with organizers just getting started.

They spread the word about the petition at Tuesday’s Newhallville Community Management Team meeting over Zoom.

The group of Newhallville residents began mobilizing after the APT Foundation bought the former Elm City Prep building at 794 Dixwell Ave. in late December without notifying the neighborhood’s interim alder at the time, Oscar Havyarimana, or other community members. 

In the new space, the APT Foundation intends to operate administrative offices, primary health care services, and a small methadone clinic. The organization anticipates that about 400 patients will relocate to Newhallville from the foundation’s location at Long Wharf. (Read more about the plans, and neighbors’ responses, here.)

Lynn Madden, the president and CEO of the APT Foundation, said she attempted to call former Ward 20 Alder Delphine Clyburn, whose contact information remained on the city’s website despite her resignation months earlier, ahead of the sale. When Clyburn’s voicemail was full, Madden did not reach out further. 

Neighbors found out about the sale through an article in the Independent in early January. A group of Newhallville residents, as well as residents in Hamden’s adjacent neighborhood of Newhall, formed an organization known as Newhallville-Hamden Strong. The group has been circulating a petition both online and in paper form in businesses along Dixwell Avenue.

According to Barbara Vereen, one of the petition’s coordinators, about 450 people have signed the petition so far. The group is aiming for 3,000 signatures.

At Tuesday’s meeting, activists echoed arguments from those living near the Long Wharf location, saying that the APT Foundation has not adequately managed unwanted or illegal behavior outside its doors in the Hill. 

“We know that APT foundation has not been a good neighbor to surrounding areas” in the Hill,” said Jeanette Sykes, who runs the Perfect Blend youth program. ​“We realize it will continue over with us.”

In an introduction to the petition, activists wrote that as a majority-Black neighborhood, Newhallville/Newhall (as the area is known just over the Hamden border) is already under-resourced and overburdened with the ramifications of institutional racism: ​“Our mission in Newhallville/Hamden is to continue building a community of love, respect, safety, opportunity and quality of life with healthy families, neighborhood associations, strong schools, successful businesses, and places of worship. We are already fighting against the structural racism that confronts us every time we leave our homes, which has further been exacerbated by the disproportionate impact of COVID deaths, school closures, digital divides, unemployment, crime and gun violence.”

“No one’s saying that we’re anti-medicine,” remarked Sean Reeves, one of the petition’s organizers. ​“That’s not the case. The problem is, we’re a residential, tight-knit community, and I don’t believe that the space would service the community well at any given point.”

Neighbors expressed outrage at the lack of communication or outreach from the APT Foundation leading up to the building sale. 

“I’m just really frustrated with the fact this happened with a lot of disrespect,” said Management Team Chair Kim Harris. ​“We are not going to take that anymore. We are going to be treated with dignity.”