APT Holds Off On Methadone Clinic; Newhallville ​“Manifests” A Better Future

Newhallville was not redlined. It was shaded yellow, as was most of New Haven, and many suburban areas, including most of what is now called East Rock, City Point, Morris Cove, Fair Haven East, Woodmont, Cosey Beach, Foxon, et alia.
https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:00000x466

Congratulations to Katurah Bryant, Jeanette Sykes and all the activists involved in Newhallville/Hamden Strong for their successful work on behalf of their communities. This is what informed grass roots activism looks like.
And now on to your positive visions for change.
Congratulations to the APT Foundation for listening to the community and to Mayor Elicker for his support of the community on this issue.
The people who actually live in a community should have a voice in what happens there.
And it is a good sign when our elected representatives are on board.

1644- while it technically may have not been redlined in paper on an official map, predatory lending, predatory landlords (aka slumlords) and minority tenants and homebuyers were steered there, and white and middle class people were steered away from there. So the reality is that the Newhall, Newhallville and Dixwell neighborhoods, among others, were redlined in actions, if not on paper.
If you look at the maps of the demographics of populations in New Haven, and you put the maps of poverty, of people identifying of being of certain races and ethnicities, and of immigrants and migrants, and of lack of trees and parks, and a map of noise and pollution, and of the history of lead paint in homes (current and prior to their being remediated,) and the lack of homeownership, and of mega landlords properties, of public housing, of property blight, of lower property values, of illegal dumping, of industrial pollution, of violence and crime, of the location of quality of life issues, of NIMBY businesses and organizations, you’ll notice that they are often the exact same neighborhoods, with the same outlines on the maps.
We have as a society, redlined and exploited and neglected these neighborhoods in practice, the way our country has done so whenever large waves of minority or ethnic groups have migrated to an area, to search for a better life.

Ethnic groups have always faced discrimination when they came here. They worked and moved up out of poverty. What has stalled in Newhallville after generations of immigrants passed through? Good question.
Newhallvilled needs help and we sure don't know what to do but we sure DO KNOW that a methadone clinic ain't it!

Very productive meeting. Time will tell what it will yield. Excellent team. Manifesting is a creative way to encourage people to participate, give their ideas and concerns...very smart of Jeanette Sykes to create a focus group for a study through Yale... true leadership...kudos to all...hand claps to the community for attending...special nod to Facilitator Townsend.

1644:

Yellow ("C") areas on that map were labeled "definitely declining," in the case of Newhallville in the 1930s due to an "infiltration of mixed foreign" and "pride of ownership is decided spotty." Lenders would generally avoid these areas or offer worse terms, although not strictly redlined. It is true that the New Haven area had a lot of yellow and red, because "Negros," "Italians, "Jews" and "Relief Families," were all thought to be signs of decline. Of course, Prospect Hill was green ("A") and the heart of single-family East Rock was blue ("B"). You can read all the nasty detailed comments here:

https://dsl.richmond.edu/socialvulnerability/map/#loc=14/41.321/-72.943&city=new-haven-ct

But Heather C is right that it is spirit of the governments 1930s maps that remained in later decades. All the areas with "Negros" at that time are redlined in your map. Later, private banks continued that tradition, effectively redlining neighborhoods (such as Newhallville) that attracted African American migration in later decades.

1644- it is not nonsensical, because while many ethnic groups or religious groups of immigrants were allowed to assimilate or to pass into a level of “whiteness” acceptability, and to work their way up the ladder of success in society, people of African descent have never been allowed the same level of assimilation and acceptance by society as the majority of Italians, Irish, Polish, Portuguese, Jewish, Catholic, or other waves of mass immigration that have come here that were discriminated against by the ruling white Protestant classes, and many others.
People of African descent were brought here against their will, and treated with far more systemic obliteration of their language, their culture, their history, their family ties, their personhood and more, and to this day are still considered and treated as “less than” by many, and suffer the systemic discrimination and racism from the impacts of the legacy of slavery to this day.
Nobody steers people of Irish or Italian or Jewish descent to specific neighborhoods to live in, or has security follow them around in stores, or is denied jobs, or passed them over for promotions, or paid them less than their equally competent white, male, Protestant coworkers based on their ethnicity or religion. But time and time again, people of African descent are discriminated against and reminded by the system that society will never allowed them to assimilate completely or to rise to the level of success or acceptance from society that other previously discriminated against groups have been able to without constantly having to deal with “living while black.” Redlining whether on paper or in practice, is just a fraction of the systemic oppression that continues to keep people of African descent from being able to reach the level of success that other groups have, unless they work 100% harder and put up with 100% more, only to be reminded every day, that society will not allow full assimilation or acceptance.

Part two
Just like woman are always reminded that they are female and are paid less than men in the same jobs and are passed over for promotions and not hired based on their gender, people of African descent are always reminded that they are black, and if you are black and female, you get the double whammy by society of being reminded of both on a daily basis.

Stop it with all the clinic talk. Do it elsewhere. Enough already. Makes me sick. Maybe some of you don’t have to deal with the consequences of this crap but others do.

Yes! Power to the people! When we come together collectively, we can get things done! Can't wait to see what the residents of Newhallville come up with for that building!!

CY2, as my name indicates, I’m Irish American. My ancestors were subject to discrimination. But they were not taken to this country in chains or subject to Jim Crow laws, restrictive housing covenants, etc. My parents (and likely yours) had access to FHA and VA mortgage programs. Few African-Americans of their generation did.

1644, I think folks are using “redlining” to refer to a variety of forms of housing discrimination rather than specifically to the HOLC maps. You’re right that a neighborhood’s map color did not determine its future - Wooster Square was redlined. But the maps were explicitly racist and part of a larger system of limiting access to housing.

You are also correct that lead is ubiquitous in New Haven and the inner suburbs. But poorly-maintained apartment buildings are much more geographically concentrated. East Rock and Newhallville have very similar housing stocks, and lead paint is very common in both. But apartment buildings in East Rock (70% of the units here) are better maintained than their counterparts in Newhallville.

I do think “manifest” is an odd choice of words. The features described by the speakers are all desirable. Some, such as that identified by Aquila Abdul-Salaam, should be expected as of right. But I don’t think the issue was a lack of clarity of what Newhallville residents want, rather how to achieve it.

A moment of thanks to the NHI and to community journalism in general…. I quote below. Thank you Paul Bass and staff!!
“ Newhallville residents learned of the planned move from a New Haven Independent article and expressed outrage that APT had not conducted community outreach before purchasing the building. The impending move galvanized residents of the neighborhood, who say they are already overburdened with poverty, health challenges exacerbated by Covid-19, trauma, and racism.”

"Manifest" is not just an odd choice of word but a ridiculous one used in the context of that meeting. It is spiritual nonsense that diminishes the planning and effort required for sustained changes on a meaningful scale. It is a non-starter.

The word they should use is "vision"... But I would remind all involved that "vision without execution is pure hallucination."

Business leaders will tell you that if you have a list of 10 or 11 "priorities," you have already lost your focus, and your execution will be awful because those that did not get their item will never fully contribute unless they have "skin in the game". My advice to this group is to select no more than three executable items (a very painful but necessary process). Prioritize those three based on funding, impact on economic growth, and sustainability of the program if it is successful.

If those work (based on reaching pre-determined agreed metrics), then move on to the next ones - rinse and repeat. Of course, this is much easier said than done when you have grown adults talking about "manifesting" - give me a break!

Connecticut does not have the time to waste on nonsense. We need serious people with serious policies; we have $90+ Billion in future obligations and a lot of pain in our future, and we can't manifest that away.

Hopefully the Mayor and City Hall don't lose sight of the fact that our city urgently needs more access to methadone treatment and especially for low-barrier treatment that APT offers. Opioid overdoses in our state are still in the top 10 nationally and New Haven, if it were a state, would match the rates of West Virginia. Too many of our neighbors and fellow New Haveners have died. I want to believe the organizers of this event, and the Mayor, that "they are not opposed to evidence-based substance use disorder treatments like methadone." Too often the rhetoric crosses the line of stigmatizing clinics like APT, which offers primary care and mental health care in addition to methadone, and, more importantly, the people who are accessing treatment and that is definitely not the way towards bending the curve on overdoses.

Put a clinic in East Rock, put it in Westville, put it on the Green, on Yale's campus. I support that wholeheartedly. We just need more treatment access. I hope the Mayor and City Hall have a plan, but it's not totally clear to me he does.