Paul Bass Photo
Emergency crews tend to poisoned drug users on the Green on Aug. 15, 2018.
Thomas Breen photo
Bob Lawlor (with sign) and BHCare’s Pam Mautte (in white) at Tuesday night’s neighborhood meeting.
The city has a new strategy for deterring overdoses in Fair Haven and on the Green: Street signs.
City Legislative Assistant for Policy Analysis Esther Armmand joined BHCare‘s Pam Mautte and the New England High Intensity Trug Trafficking Area‘s Bob Lawlor and Sarah Ali to introduce that new educational campaign Tuesday night at the regular monthly Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team meeting on the second floor of City Hall.
The street sign campaign, which the city has submitted to the Board of Alders for review and a final vote, would result in the installation of six new signs downtown around the Green and six new signs on Ferry Street between Chapel Street and Grand Avenue in Fair Haven.
Lawlor said that the project was conceived by the city’s Overdose Response Task Force, which Mayor Toni Harp convened in the wake of last year’s dozens of K2 poisonings on the Green. The street signs will be installed on existing city infrastructure like traffic signs and light poles, he said.
Tuesday night’s management team meeting.
The signs themselves will display two phone numbers: 1.800.563.4086, which is the substance abuse treatment 24 – 7 hotline operated by the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS); and 2 – 1‑1, which is Connecticut United Way’s 24 – 7 general hotline for services ranging from housing to elder care to crisis intervention.
The DMHAS number and the other encouraging information on the two-sided signs are also part of a statewide Live LOUD (Life with Opioid Use Disorder) campaign that urges people struggling with addiction to reach out for help. One side of each sign will be written in English, the other in Spanish.
“The signage campaign is really designed to start changing the environment and the landscape in New Haven,” Lawlor said. “To break the stigma, and to get people who have an addiction the resources they need to get help when they need it, and not just 9 to 5, Monday through Friday.”
In addition to the 12 street signs that will be installed as part of a pilot downtown and in Fair Haven, Mautte said, the signage campaign will also include sidewalk stickers, change mats, and coffee sleeves with similar educational information for those looking for help.
This is just a pilot, Armmand stressed. If the alders approve the program, then the signs will go up, and the Overdose Response Task Force will reevaluate the program in a year and provide a written report to the board on its findings.
LCI Neighborhood Specialist Carmen Mendez.
Livable City Initiative (LCI) Neighborhood Specialist Carmen Mendez said she lives in Fair Haven near the McDonald’s on Ferry Street, where many people with addiction problems congregate.
Many people she has spoken too in that community simply do not have phones, she said. What good is a phone number for the phoneless?
Mautte said that the task force is currently working to secure a second phase of funding for recovery coaches and other recovery navigators to be able to go to these areas with high concentrations of overdoses and help people navigate the support system in person. The first phase of this educational initiative, she said, will be focused on signage.
“If I had an addiction problem,” Mendez said, “‘Live LOUD’ doesn’t mean a thing to me.” How will the target audience know what these signs are talking about?
Lawlor said he had a similar concern when he first saw the signs. But then he spoke with members of the Odonnell Company, the local firm that created the Live LOUD campaign in the first place.
They focus grouped the message for over a year with people who struggle with addiction, he said, and found that this particular call to action was the most effective and resonant with the target audience.
Also, he said, he thinks that it’s actually a plus that the signs are bright and positive, and don’t include specific references or images related to overdoses. When he and Ali spoke with alders and police downtown and in Fair Haven about the campaign, he said, he heard concerns time and again that these signs would be too graphic and almost traumatizing for residents of those neighborhoods who do not need addiction support.
“We tried to find stuff with a positive message,” he said, “so that it wasn’t just all doom.”
I happened to be at one of the committee hearings last month and listened to the pitch from this group. I learned that two of the underlying factors (there may have been only 2) used to justify this campaign were the following. 1. Data collected showed that the areas targeted for signage had the highest incidents of overdoses and, 2. that a study done near a suicide area in California showed that signage in this particular suicide area (maybe a bridge?) decreased suicides in the area. I don't recall any other supporting information and this is a pilot program.
I agree with Carmen Mendez when she says that those on opioids may not respond to signage. Furthermore, is there any empirical evidence that signage works for those on opioids? Sometimes things just don't translate and it sounds like this may be one of those cases.
I know of 6 people who have died of prescription opioids in this CT. Addiction is devastating to all those who surround an addict, especially if it leads to an overdose and finding a solution that makes any difference can be alluring. However, I am highly skeptical that this will have any impact for those on opioids.