New Haven’s kiosk model with Gar Waterman design.
Hill neighbors heard a plea for addressing a public nuisance plaguing kids on Minor Street, while debating whether a “syringe tree” will create a new threat to kids at a playground near the John C. Daniels School.
Those concerns, along with a call for a more coordinated approach to addressing drug abuse, were at the heart of discussion at the monthly meeting of the Hill North Community Management Team convened on Tuesday night.
The gathering, which attracted 35 neighbors and presenters over the Zoom teleconferencing app, was chaired by the team Chair Howard Boyd and facilitated by Leslie Radcliffe.
A ‑review of the chronic problem of drug usage in the Hill shifted into gear when Interim Executive Director Barbara Chesler of the Boys & Girls Clubs of New Haven asked for help with “serious problems we are having on Minor Street, on the north side of the club’s building.”
“We’ve got children in the building,” she said. The kids, as well as staff, find themselves negotiating their way past needles and other drug usage residue of people who are often still sleeping in the area of the club in the morning.
Livable City Initiative staffer Arthur Natalino promised to go by, check out the conditions, then get back to Chesler precisely about how the city might address the issues, which reflect combined challenges of homelessness and public drug use.
Chesler said she was most appreciative. “Last year,” she added, “we had squatters on the back porch. … We’ve had lots of problems with needle drops last year. We had to pull out the shrubbery. We didn’t want to, but there were lots of needle drops.”
Natalino and Chesler made a date to meet, after his survey, to discuss next steps.
Ameliorating the needle drop problem was at the centerpiece of the next issue that came up before Hill North neighbors.
Robert Lawlor of the city’s Harm Reduction Task Force told neighbors about a plan for a number of privately funded secure syringe disposal kiosks, on of which is coming to the neighborhood. (Click here to read more about the project and a similar presentation Lawlor made last month to the Fair Haven Community Management Team.)
Not everyone was thrilled with the prospect or, more precisely, with the location, which had been chosen with consultation by Lawlor with the leadership of the Hill North CMT.
Organizers of the program said the kiosks have had considerable success in New York, the model for the New Haven “syringe tree.” The model design is also being adapted by Westville artist Gar Waterman.
The plan is to roll out the kiosks in a few weeks at Grand and Ferry, Howard and Minor, and Congress and Daggett.
When Hill North CMT leaders heard of the program, they asked for another structure, and in consuotation with Lawlor, decided on the rear of John C. Daniels School between Baldwin and Ward Street. The location for the kiosk is just outside the playground on Baldwin Street side of the rear of the school.
Lawlor said that location was chosen because the survey showed it was an area where lots of syringes were being disposed of improperly, and children were playing among them.
Neighbor Radu Radulescu“I would like to bring up the idea that these drug disposal trees could become areas of loitering and actually attracting drug users to the area,” said neighbor Radu Radulescu.
Leslie Radcliffe pointed out that the CMT executive board had met with Mr. Lawlor to discuss the placement of the trees. “They are actually being placed in areas where users were already gathering,” Radcliffe said.
“It is interesting to me,” Radulescu continued, “that we place possible drug hubs in drug-free areas such as schools. Don’t we indirectly endorse the state of affairs that there is heavy drug usage around the school?”
Chairman Boyd also expressed concern that the kiosk, along with the bilingual signage planned with phone numbers for rehabilitation programs, might indeed be too close to the school.
Radcliffe brought the various issues together at the meeting’s end.
“We should not just address the issue of finding syringes. The kiosk is a bandaid,” she said. That’s the result of a greater problem, the pockets of drug use that have been a chronic issue in the Hill.
She said that heretofore, Hill leaders have met with the police, or met with the APT Foundation’s medically assisted treatment program, and other “stakeholders” to address the issue. One meeting at a time without sufficient coordination and follow-through.
No longer.
Radcliffe said many of the issues discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting will be aired in a new approach, a community-wide one, being kicked off with a community-wide Zoom meeting scheduled for May 24 from 1 to 3 p.m. A new working group, she said, will emerge, to address the issue in a more comprehensive way that would benefit residents from end to end of the district.
“This is going to be a start. We can’t solve everything at once, but it’s going to be ongoing, and we’ll be working together,” she said.
To that end she asked if the installation schedule of the syringe kiosks could be paused for further consultation. Lawlor was agreeable and is signed up to be attending the May 24 gathering.
According to the group’s agenda, also intending to be there will be Mayor Elicker, Fire Chief Alston, Police Chief Dominguez, Health Department Director Maritza Bond, and officials from the APT Foundation, John C Daniels School, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, and a half dozen other groups and city departments.
Anyone interested in joining the May 24 Zoom gathering should .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
For the record, and to provide an accurate physical orientation, the proposed location of this fourth "blue, used heroin/opioid syringe disposal tree by Westville artist Gar Waterman" is not to be located "near or behind" the John C. Daniels School. IT IS PROPOSED TO BE on the John C. Daniels (JCD) school's playground, that is actively and regularly used every school day by JCD students during school-time recess periods or after school by students who live in the neighborhood, and by suburban JCD students like our children to play with their friends and classmates. Listening to the proposal by Robert Lawlor, the Director of the Connecticut HIDTA (High Intensity Trafficking Drug Area) and the City's Harm Reduction Task Force last Tuesday, instantly brought a visceral Nancy Reagan Just Say No to Drugs lump to my throat. Pardon? A used heroin/opioid needle dropbox on our children's school's playground? Last month I read about this proposal for 3 locations around New Haven: 2 in Fair Haven and one on the corner of Congress Avenue and Daggett Street, diagonally across from one of the JCD's four corners. But to place the fourth "Blue syringe tree" by the school's playground on Baldwin Street may be a bit hard to swallow. However, after a more careful review of the current, neighborhood 'drug use' situation and most important, for the primary sake of safety for the JCD students, staff and school community, I see and accept the reasoning why this should be the fourth site. Accordingly, in the next ten days before the community-wide zoom meeting proposed for May 24, I fully intend to communicate and persuade members of the John C. Daniels School PTO board, JCD staff, students, parents and friends to support this initiative and allow the Harm Reduction Task Force to carry out its immediate plans to install these much needed "Blue syringe disposal trees" as soon as possible. The program will be monitored and appropriate changes can be implemented as required later on.