Supervised Injection Sites Claim Success but East Harlem Opposition Persists

One of the first two supervised drug injection sites in the nation, intended to reduce overdose deaths, reports hundreds of lives saved. The Greater Harlem Coalition isn’t placated.

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By Aaron Simon Gross

It takes twenty minutes on the BxM9 to get to East 126th Street from her Bronx home.

In black Adidas leggings, a heavy sweatshirt and a slightly dazed smile, she stands outside OnPoint NYC in East Harlem, one of the first two government-supported supervised opioid injection sites in the United States; the other is in Washington Heights.

The woman, 42 and currently unemployed, won’t say much. She fears her family and potential employers learning that she’s about to sit in a small booth with wooden partitions and avoid looking at herself in a mirror while shooting a mix of cocaine and heroin through her veins. The use of opioids remains illegal federally.

But these New York City-supported overdose prevention centers, with staff trained to reverse overdoses and promote safe drug use, have provided a sanctuary for opioid users since opening in November. As their first anniversaries near, what has been their local impact?

The East 126th Street site is inconspicuous, with a black awning announcing in bright yellow letters ONPOINT NYC. On a recent Friday night shortly after the facility closed, a group of men merrily socialized outside the doors. A little girl clutching her father’s hand walked quickly past, gaze fixed forward; the two groups ignored each other.

This summer, the Department of Health published a study of the two sites’ first two months. It found that trained staff intervened in potential overdose deaths 125 times, with no fatalities at the clinics or among patients transported to hospitals. More than three-quarters reported that they would have used drugs in a public location if the clinics hadn’t existed.

Samuel Rivera, the site’s executive director, regularly updates Twitter followers on the clinics’ activities and posted, in late August, that 1,663 individuals had used the two sites 33,409 times, with 462 overdose interventions.

That track record doesn’t mollify some residents, however. “Of course you’re saving those people’s lives, and I have compassion,” said Madlyn Stokely, 74, who has lived in Harlem all her life. “You have to have a big heart to do that kind of work, and they are doing some good for people. But why would you bring them here?”

Stokely and other members of the Greater Harlem Coalition, formed in 2018 to fight an influx of opioid centers into the neighborhood, have focused on the East 126th Street center.

In interviews, community members said they feel unsafe, unable to walk down streets or use parks without seeing people injecting or seemingly under the influence. Many fear the effect this will have on their children and grandchildren.

“I think it’s child abuse. I really do. Why are children allowed to walk by this daily?” said Jenny Scobel, 67, an artist. “I’m not talking about seeing it once. I’m talking about seeing it every time you leave your house.”

She has lived in the neighborhood 21 years and said she’d always felt secure, but her home has been broken into twice since the clinic opened. “I don’t walk around without my hand, and Mace, in my pocket.”

Holding rallies, speaking at community board meetings and posting on online forums, the Greater Harlem Coalition also writes to local elected officials, like City Councilmember Diana Ayala, who have supported the centers despite taking issue with the number of clinics in Harlem.

Claiming membership of 6,000 residents and 85 local organizations, members also met with recently elected City Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan and are hopeful she will listen.

“If you dispersed clinics around the city in an equitable fashion,” said Xavier Santiago, 43, chairman of Manhattan Community Board 11 in East Harlem, “it would be less of an issue in this community.”

The city health department, study authors and press representatives for OnPoint NYC did not respond to multiple requests over several weeks for interviews and information.

Harlem has the highest concentration of opioid clinics in the city, according to data from the state’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services. A WNYC/Gothamist study, using 2019-2020 data, found that only 25% of clinic participants came from Harlem.

A man leaves the clinic on a recent Monday morning.

Yvette Green, 57, an IT project manager who has spent her life in East Harlem, complained that “there was no community engagement. None. They didn’t have discussions. Be willing to work with the people who live here.”

A city health department study by Rebecca Giglio, a deputy chief of staff, found that early, sustained community engagement has been critical to the sites’ success and mentioned “general educational briefings with local community groups and leaders” held last fall.

But emails and recorded community board meetings show that East Harlemites were never explicitly told that the center was coming. “The public was denied a meaningful, transparent dialogue,” said Santiago, “and that eroded our trust.”

On September 12, Michael McRae, the health department’s acting executive deputy commissioner for mental hygiene, came to a Community Board 11 meeting to answer questions. But attendees said they found McRae’s answers evasive and were frustrated to hear the same talking points they’ve seen in press releases.

McRae acknowledged that East Harlem’s opioid-related death rate “is not the highest in the city, but it’s undeniable that it’s an area of concern,” adding that the health department “wants to see this as a citywide strategy. We want to grow the OPC work.”

OnPoint NYC hopes to expand despite continued opposition. At community board meetings, city health officials continue to share data on the sites’ victories, but locals see these gestures as irrelevant to their concerns and too late. At the meeting McRae attended, Santiago told him, “We’ve been trying to engage Dr. Cunningham” — commissioner of the Office of Addiction Services and Supports — “who’s been invited multiple times. No response. Just like it’s taken about eight, nine months to have you at the table.”

Furious that the clinic sits across the street from a school and that, unlike liquor stores, opioid clinics can operate anywhere, locals often point to a November health department study that ranked Harlem behind three Bronx neighborhoods in opioid-related deaths. Yet Bronx residents come to Manhattan for opioid-use support, they argue.

Many Harlemites have found the site’s services useful too, however. A 56-year-old opioid user who asked to remain anonymous, for fear of publicly identifying with the clinic, lives a few blocks away. She said it has stopped her from injecting publicly, and that she appreciated the staff’s warmth and helpfulness.

“It just feels like the conversation has shifted totally towards the person who is addicted, as opposed to everybody else, and it doesn’t seem like it has to be an either-or,” said Stokely. She feels her government is telling her “‘Your mental health is not all that important. The stress that you’re experiencing is not that important. What’s more important is the people who are addicted.’ For me there has to be much more of a balance.”

(Featured photo of 2021 demonstration by Howard Liu; photo of clinic by Aaron Simon Gross)

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