“Why are we bearing the full brunt of the city’s complete addiction?”
That is the question that Claudia asks herself every day. Along with Mónica, they are part of the Greater Harlem Coalition, a group of neighbors who fight for a good quality of life in East Harlem and Harlem and those who complain about the large number of facilities in the area that treat addiction. to drugs.
“The sale and purchase of drugs in plain sight, the conditions in the streets, the garbage, the crime … we have seen people who are affected with addiction drugged sleeping on our stairs,” explained Claudia.
Claudia has lived in Harlem for eight years and Monica for her entire life. Images like these, they say, are what can be seen daily walking through the area.
“You don’t see that on the Upper East Side, that’s not happening, you don’t see that in Soho, that a block can have four clinics. And those who come here for service don’t live here,” said Monica.
According to data from the Greater Harlem Coalition, the Harlem area has nearly 20 percent of the city’s opioid treatment facilities, while the percentage of area residents needing these clinics is only 7.5 percent.
A few weeks ago East Harlem Community Board 11 passed a resolution calling for a one-year hiatus on any new drug, chemical dependency, or treatment rehab centers in the area.
“We know that they cannot stop the clinics, close the clinics, but try to limit the increase in patients who come every day,” added Monica.
“To have clinics on a smaller scale that can be found in every neighborhood, in every community that they need to be in. It’s not just here in Harlem that they are needed,” Claudia said.
Claudia.
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The group demands that the state recognize the oversaturation of these clinics in the Harlem area and that these clinics lower the capacity of patients they see on a daily basis.
For its part, the state Office of Addiction Support and Services tells us that it has been in contact with Community Board 11 and is open to an ongoing commitment to hear your concerns.
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