Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
Convener Leslie Radcliffe: No more Band-aids.
Fence off Daniels School’s syringe-strewn playground.
Hold an “Awareness Day” on services for the homeless and/or drug-addicted.
Have dealers face neighbors, including kids, at a “drug market intervention” version of Project Longevity.
Neighbors brainstormed those and other “stitches” in the quality-of-life wound that plagues the Hill.
Residents told more than a dozen city and private health and homeless agencies that now, post-pandemic, they want no more Band-aids, but focused short- and long-term solutions.
The discussion occurred at a special online meeting of the Hill North Community Management Team member.
The mid-afternoon meeting, on the Zoom teleconferencing app, drew about 35 participants, It was co-hosted by management team Chair Howard Boyd and moderated by resident Leslie Radcliffe, who also helms the City Plan Commission.
The meeting was triggered by a proposal, placed before the team last month, to locate a syringe disposal kiosk near the John C. Daniels School.
That proposal was brought to neighbors and the CMT through the city’s Harm Reduction Taskforce. It was not universally embraced.
Some residents called it a Band-aid on the chronic problem of open-air drug dealing in the HiIll as well as the sometimes aberrant behavior of those in treatment after leaving the area’s treatment facilities.
The proposal was tabled to the June CMT meeting, while Monday’s special gathering was organized to brainstorm.
Thomas Breen Photo
Management team Chair Howard Boyd: We need to hit the streets to help.
Officials from the police, health department, hospital, drug treatment facilities, and other nonprofits were there to listen as Radcliffe deftly asked residents to describe how daily quality of life is being affected. Then officials were asked to respond.
Stevens Street resident Maxine Harris, on her own dime and initiative, has been doing read-alouds and movie nights for local kids on the weekends. The kids are in her yard while nearby, on the corner of Davenport and Stevens, “it’s really active. They [drug users] do their stuff, then they start nodding, neighbors keep shooing them away. I try not to let the kids focus on the outside of the fence; everything is on the inside.”
Boyd and John C. Daniels PTO President Sylvester Salcedo bemoaned having regularly to pick up glassine bags and syringes on the playground and the street.
Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez was among several residents calling attention to how many people, non-Hill residents, “are coming into New Haven to receive resources.”
“We have individuals,” she said, “utilizing the green spaces who are doing bad things. On Congress Avenue people are injecting themselves. Why should we have to see the things we are seeing?” she pleaded.
“While we want everyone to receive the services and while it is sad to see someone hurting and in pain and you don’t know how to help them move to the next step … still let’s come up with something effective.”
If there were an elephant in the room, it was that the Hill North area has for years been rich in treatment centers, hospitals, shelters, along with an impressive array of city agencies and other nonprofits active in addressing drugs, homelessness.
Nick Perkins Photo
Top Hill cop Sgt. Justin Marshall with neighbors this week.
Prompted by Radcliffe, officials Monday reported on their efforts. Kathy Eggert, who runs the APT Foundation facility on Congress Avenue, said the treatment population there has been substantially reduced with clients sent to APT facilities in West Haven, North Haven, and elsewhere closer to where they live.
CityHomeless Coordinator Velma George said that federal post-pandemic funding will enable her outreach staff to bring more homeless into the fold of services. The Connecticut Mental Health Center’s “street psychiatry” unit hopes to be more active. City Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal said a non-cop crisis intervention unit in formation could potentially make a big difference when a pilot begins several months from now
Longtime Hill resident Jose DeJesus, carrying on the appropriate medical metaphor of the afternoon, summed it up: “The epidemic has brought to the surface how serious the drug problem is. We need the maintenance folks, we need UI with lighting, more programming, more intervention. The Hill needs help. The problem is big, we need to solve this a stitch at a time.”
Pandemic Not An Excuse, But …
District Manager Sgt. Justin Marshall said that despite the pandemic his cops, have been out there. “There have been a lot of gun and drug arrests,” he said.
But there’s been a looming problem: “We have arrested people at Congress and Redfield, buyers and dealers we’ve arrested three times, and they are out before the ink is dry on the report. The court system is backfilled also because of the pandemic, and it has really thrown a monkey wrench into the process.”
He said that will change. In the specific matter of the John C. Daniels School, Marshall said a fence around the playground is on the way. “We’re planning to insulate the school, putting a fence up that will help proactively with the syringes so kids don’t have to see it.”
Marshall also said he supports the syringe kiosk proposal and the growing emphasis on helping people with drug problems and small possession, not jailing them. “We can something different because New Haven is so progressive.”
Acting Chief of Police Renee Dominguez said walking beats are also going to resume, although given manpower issues, it might be only once a week in the Hill.
She assured residents that officers, especially the walking or biking beats, will carry new weapons — info on treatment and homeless programs.
“We’ll do more beyond crime suppressing, more community engagement, providing resources, and starting this week.”
Assistant Chief Karl Jacobson echoed Marshall:“You’re going to see changes in the courts, which are now reopening, because as of now there are people with four charges against them still out there on the street. The courts are going to catch up.”
Jacobson also said that police drug units, which might typically do a buy that would lead to arrests and then maybe the “hitting” of a known drug house, have also been hampered by Covid protocols that are also changing.
A New Police Tactic
The initiative that Jacobson was most passionate about is an offshoot or version of Project Longevity targeted to buyers and users at drug markets. And Jacobson said he was poised to pitch it to the community right before the pandemic struck.
It was started in Hight Point, North Carolina, he explained, where it is called Drug Market Initiative. And at its heart, he said, is buy-in from the community, which he then proceeded to seek.
Here’s how he pitched it: “I was going to start this just before Covid. We make buys into them, have arrest warrants, and have community meetings with [the offender]. This is your one opportunity to stop and walk away. But if not, we sign this warrant and you are arrested. This is like Project Longevity. We do this a couple of times, and it gives them a message.
“This is a different way of doing policing. We had started to think of doing this prior to the pandemic, and then my drug units weren’t able to buy drugs because that spread Covid, so for an entire year we weren’t able to buy drugs and hit (drug) houses. It was started in High Point, North Carolina and was very successful.
(Click here, here and here to read about a previous ill-fated attempt to import the High Point program to New Haven 12 years ago.)
“Bottom line message is: We’re willing to do this but we need your help. I’m passionate about this group violence intervention. We can do the same thing to the drug marketing.”
The two-hour meeting concluded with a sense of urgency, but not panic.
“I went to the parks and talked to people using needles in front of our faces,” Rodriguez said. “They are in one service or another. We are expecting people to come out of the hotels. What are we going to do now and today?”
Hill North Community Management Team members committed to an Awareness Day to knock on all the doors in the Hill with brochures and info about the large range of help that’s available.
“If you want the community involved,” said Boyd, “they have to see us regularly, at least every month.”
Im glad the police, the community and the city are coming together to figure out how to tackle the quality of life issues and crimes surrounding substance abuse. I hope they will come up with solutions that will work better for the neighbors, the addicts, the police and everybody.
I have to ask why can't the substance abusers use their drugs at home? Or in a safe drug use walk in clinic where medical professionals could prevent overdoses and substance abuse counselors and mental health counselors could work with users in a non-judgmental way to help them get sober. We could remove the user from the streets and get them the help they need. If we could take away the stigma and criminalization of substance abuse as a moral failure and instead treat it the same as a physical ailment.
We could reduce the quality of life issues that impact the community and instead funnel our resources into creating safe spaces to save people's lives and help get them clean when they are ready and treat the underlying issues that led them to abuse substances.