Nora Grace-Flood photo
Ex-social services chief Mehul Dalal: "There's no secret plan."
Loved ones of lives lost to overdoses stepped out of the shadows and into City Hall to express both support and skepticism towards medically supervised injection and drug consumption sites — and to slam a mayoral candidate’s public opposition to such harm reduction centers as politicizing and polarizing opioid addiction.
That took place at a public hearing held by the Board of Alders Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday night in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
The committee held that public hearing at the request of Democratic-and-Republican mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg, who earlier in the week accused the Elicker administration of “secretively” plotting to bring safe-use sites to the city without community input. Mayor Justin Elicker has denied that there is any secret plan, stating that he is interested in such a program but that the city is far from opening any such site any time soon.
Overall, Thursday’s hearing saw harm reduction advocates and other members of the public push not just for procedural transparency, but for greater openness about substance abuse itself.
Tom Goldenberg uses safe-use sites to formally bash the Elicker administration on Thursday.
At that press conference earlier in the week, Goldenberg reported that he had used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain documents showcasing that the city is interested in establishing safe-use sites in New Haven. He said he had FOIA’d documents mentioning “safe-use” and “safe-injection” after hearing about the city’s intentions through casual conversations around town. When he received emails between former city Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal and Mayor Elicker discussing the tentative groundwork it would take to build out a safe-use site and sketching out a budget for the project, Goldenberg accused Elicker and Dalal of scheming behind closed doors and “circumventing the role of the Board of Alders” by “appropriating” money towards a project that had yet to receive the local legislative body’s or public’s approval or review.
Read more about Goldenberg’s claims and hard stance against safe-use sites as well as Elicker’s response in a previous article here. The upshot: The Elicker administration confirmed their interest in founding an overdose prevention site, but is only in the earliest exploratory stages of such an undertaking.
No one from the Elicker administration showed up to address Goldenberg’s allegations on Thursday. But Dalal, who recently left his job with the city for a role with the state, did return to City Hall to abolish Goldenberg’s misconceptions about the situation.
First, Dalal said, the city administration has publicly spoken out in favor of safe-use sites and expressed interest in bringing a harm reduction center to New Haven on numerous occasions, including putting the idea down in words within the mayor’s 2019 transition plan and testifying in favor of state legislation that would permit such sites around the state.
Audience members eager to weigh in on the substance of safe-use sites.
“There’s no secret plan,” Dalal asserted. He said the city is interested in safe-use sites as a potential strategy for fighting a surging number of overdoses among New Haven residents, noting that the number of deaths from overdoses in New Haven rose from 26 in 2015 to 130 in 2022. But no city money has been spent on research into the topic.
Rather, the city has merely coordinated with nonprofits like the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) that are independently funding research into the legality and implications of such a site within New Haven.
Steve Werlin, the executive director of DESK, also stood up on Thursday to criticize Goldeberg’s “politically timed hearing on this topic,” worrying that his actions would “further stigmatize and demonize” harm reduction efforts. He requested that the Board of Alders postpone any additional hearings concerning overdose prevention centers until after the November election.
Others showed up to combat the danger of that stigma by sharing their own stories.
Fiona Cullinan Firina, for example, recalled losing her son, Cameron, to a fentanyl overdose. He had been sober for years when he relapsed after enduring opioid addiction catalyzed by an oxycontin prescription for a high school football injury. “Had there been an option, he would’ve availed himself of the opportunity to test the drug,” Firina said in favor of safe-use sites. Perhaps, she said, if he had been able to go to a place with social workers before he decided to consume, he would’ve received the support he needed to avoid a relapse altogether.
One by one, people stepped up on Thursday to share their experiences with addiction, nearly each member of the audience recalling a friend or family member taken too soon due to a preventable overdose.
Nikita Brown raises questions about what a safe-use site would like in New Haven...
... While DESK Executive Director Steve Werlin informs the alders how far off such considerations and questions remain as his nonprofit launches preliminary research into the concept.
Some of those individuals listed the myriad advantages of safe-use sites: Overdoses reversed, spread of diseases by dirty needles reduced, sufferers of substance disorders connected with social services and resources. Others expressed skepticism of what a safe-use site might mean in the city, questioning the technicalities around how the city would oversee such a site, worrying that the operation could endanger neighbors and hurt businesses, wondering where an incoming site would be located.
All those pros and cons, alders agreed, were actually too premature to discuss Thursday night.
“Before us tonight is not an injection center,” Westville/Amity Alder and Majority Leader Richard Furlow stated. “This board has no knowledge of any injection center coming to the city of New Haven… Nothing is being considered and nothing is being done because nothing has been presented to the Board of Alders, and that’s the proper process.”
That said, he added that he did not mean to silence testimony highlighting the hurt caused by the growing opioid epidemic: “I buried my cousin a few weeks ago from an overdose and it’s heartbreaking.”
Goldenberg testifying to the BOA committee.
Taking that guidance in stride, community members also spoke directly to the matter at hand: The significance of Goldenberg’s investigation into the city’s stance on safe-use.
Green Party alder candidate Paul Garlinghouse, for example, bashed Goldenberg for trying “to score some cheap political points on the backs of people who are suffering in New Haven tonight.”
Emme Magliato, meanwhile, saw a silver lining behind the “politically-timed” hearing — an opportunity to work more open-heartedly towards a safe-use site in New Haven.
“I appreciate seeing the documents — and seeing a potential path paved forward,” she stated. “I appreciate the discussion about how this could be made a reality in New Haven… I look forward to the weeks ahead where we can see this come to light.”
With that, the committee of alders unanimously agreed to file the matter — and hold space for the community to weigh in if and when a serious plan for safe-use sites were to emerge.
"Perhaps, she said, if he had been able to go to a place with social workers before he decided to consume..." Any loss of life is sad and unfortunate, but I'd bet there are many social workers in NH that would have been available, had he really been so inclined.