Al Taylor is vieing to be Harlem’s next City Council member and here is your chance to meet him, and walk with him in the neighborhood. Meet him at La Marqueta – 115/Park – tomorrow at 2:30pm and walk up to 126th Street.
Al Taylor is an assembly sponsor of a bill to legalize supervised injection sites in New York State, yet has apparently never seen/toured the OnPoint facility. Here is your chance to show him East 126th Street.
If you can’t walk up from East 115th Street and Park, email [email protected] and ask for an ETA at Lex/126.
The Greater Harlem Coalition’s Response to the Supervised Injection Site’s Partial Data For Their First Year In Harlem
New York’s Nonprofit Media has released some of OnPoint’s data for year one of operation in East Harlem and Washington Heights (November 2021 to 2022):
2,147 people have used the injection sites 48,284 times
Of those 48,284 visits, 633 used either a lethal mixture of, or a sufficient quantity of, illegal drugs to overdose
All 633 overdosing events were reversed by OnPoint staff
The Greater Harlem Coalition firmly supports compassionate intervention and the goal of saving lives. We understand those who use OnPoint’s injection site(s) require complex and thoughtful engagement and we support the overarching goals of harm reduction.
Unfortunately, however, OnPoint’s Harlem site has repeatedly failed to engage in Community Harm Reduction – a model that approaches addiction treatment holistically within a public health model. Community Harm Reduction not only serves and supports the people who use OnPoint’s services, but it also centers a goal of not harming neighboring businesses, neighbors, children, and families.
Community Harm Reduction engages and supports local businesses.
Community Harm Reduction works with local businesses to reduce loitering and theft.
Community Harm Reduction ensures that children who attend local schools do not repeatedly encounter used syringes, or have to cross the street just to avoid open-air drug sales.
Additionally, Community Harm Reduction would engage in approaches that support Harlem residents’ right to be able to get to the train, walk to the park, welcome their family, and enjoy their streets without fear of encountering drug dealers brazenly selling narcotics.
The open-air drug dealing on OnPoint’s doorstep that brings dealers and users to our community is unacceptable. We need OnPoint and New York City’s Department of Health to acknowledge that Harlem’s vibrant and diverse community should be protected, strengthened, and not simply dismissed as their program’s unavoidable collateral damage.
Click HERE to learn more about The Greater Harlem Coalition’s fight for #FairShare4Harlem
Submit Your Ideas On Harlem’s Eastern Waterfront
The city wants your guidance on developing the waterfront next to the FDR, from 96th Street to 125th Street. Please fill out this form to submit your ideas:
One of the most blatant examples of recent decisions that bolstered the structural racism our community struggles with, was to locate the nation’s first supervised consumption site across the street from a Harlem Pre-K.
By not engaging with the community (who would have emphatically asked OnPoint and NYC’s Department of Health not to locate an injection site across from a Pre-K) in the process of deciding on the location for the injection site, OnPoint has endangered Harlem’s children and families attending this A.B.C. school.
One of the manifestations of this endangerment has been that A.B.C. school has felt it was prudent to install 2-inch thick bullet-proof glass on their ground floor windows.
And, in case you were wondering how many students attend school within 1,000 feet (or two blocks) of the injection site, the answer is 4,250 students:
Thank you so much for joining our Harlem Neighborhood Block Association (HNBA) November meeting. We really appreciate your time and now realize we should have held this meeting with you much earlier.
We are very interested in learning more about what can be done by your organization and the city officials who you regularly meet with, to address our main concerns – the open-air drug use and drug dealing which has exploded on our streets over the last year. As you heard from resident after resident at our meeting, HNBA is asking OnPoint to adopt a community health model, and incorporate us, as your neighbors, and simultaneously address our needs and concerns in addition to working to save lives and guide your participants to health.
Our support for OnPoint and the work you do, is profoundly impacted by conditions we experience when we leave our homes. We want a community where our children can play, where our seniors feel safe, and where everyone can enjoy the streets of Harlem. Saying that Harlem was always this way is not acceptable. We all need to do better, to expect more, and we hope OnPoint agrees this can’t be the excuse for the increased drug use and dealing we detailed to you.
Please let us know what steps OnPoint (and the city officials you meet with) intend to take. If you would like, we would be happy to invite you to give us a brief (10-15 minute) update at our January meeting.
Again, thank you for attending our meeting and we look forward to continued discussion for a resolve both beneficial to OnPoint constituents and HNBA Neighbors.
Sincerely,
Hallia Baker, HNBA President
HNBA’s November Meeting With OnPoint and the Safe Injection Site Staff Recording
The New York Democratic Lawyers Council is looking for experienced voter pros to take shifts in voter protection boiler rooms. All boiler rooms will be run remotely so all you will need is a computer and wifi.
All early voting days we will have one overall statewide boiler room. On election day the boiler rooms will be split into regions. encompassing the whole state. If you have time and are interested, please use the email below or add your name to the the sign-up form.
Please submit the virtual boiler room sign-up form for early voting and election day. Please block the dates and times you’ve selected in your calendar.
An on-demand dialpad/LBJ boiler room training will be available by the end of this week.
Please let Alejandra Pollak, Executive Director know if you have any questions!
An HNBA Conversation With The Safe Injection Site On East 126th St.
Make sure to join the Tuesday, November 8th, HNBA monthly meeting at 7:00 PM. We’ve invited the Executive Director of OnPoint – the organization that runs the safe injection site on East 126th Street near Lexington. This injection site has been in operation for almost a year, and this is your chance to learn what they do, who they serve, and to offer your thoughts on how this site has impacted our community.
Tune in, ask questions, and offer your insight.
Topic: HNBA Meeting
Time: Nov 8, 2022 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
The Greater Harlem Coalition is hosting a public forum with OnPoint – the organization that runs the safe injection site on East 126th Street – on Tuesday, October 25th, at 7:00 PM. And yes, you are invited to join.
To learn more and offer your thoughts/opinions, please register here:
Please spread the word! Forward this to your neighbors, block association, friends, relatives, colleagues, and anyone else you know who would like to hear from and ask questions about the injection site. This meeting is a rare opportunity for you to learn more and express your thoughts on the injection site and their plans to open 24/7.
Nightmare on 129th Street
The Harlem Rose Garden is hosting Nightmare on 129th Street again this year. Make sure to stop by with any ghosts or goblins that you reside with on Saturday, October 29th.
HNBA’s very own Hallia Baker joined Assemblymember Inez Dickens in a community conversation about the “Crisis on 125th Street” on Manhattan News Network.
The episode will air on TV this Sunday February 27th at 7pm and will repeat Wednesday March 2nd at 9pm.
How to watch on TV: MNN1 (Spectrum 34 & 1995, RCN 82, FiOS 33) or MNNHD (Spectrum 1993)
Meanwhile, here is the promo that features Hallia Baker:
Harlem Dancers
This sound recording of an infectious boogie-woogie number: “Dispossessed Blues” is one of three boogie-woogie instrumental films with dance made by pianist Lynn Albritton in 1943.
Little is known about Lynn Albritton as she never made any recordings. There are, however, two other films on the Department of Afro-American Research Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Blaxploi…
Syringes on the Street
If you see discarded syringe litter or other drug paraphernalia in our community, the fastest way to get it safely removed is to call or text OnPoint’sSyringe Pickup Hotline:718.415.3708
Staff from the safe injection site will come out and properly dispose of it.
Please put 718.415.3708 in your phone now so you can retrieve the number quickly when you need to access it.
Note that 311 will also send trained DSNY staff to clean-up sharps, but the response time is unacceptably long. OnPoint’s staff are located at the safe injection site at Park/126th Street and can get to the site you identify, quickly.
