Greater Harlem Coalition just launched a petition on Change.org: www.Change.org/CommunityHarmReduction
The petition requests that New York State’s Assembly and Senate Members should reject The Safer Consumption Act, bill s399/a338 to legalize the safe consumption site on 126th Street, unless the following 6 Safety Guardrails are added to the bill:
- Open many supervised injection sites (SISs) or none at all
- Keep injection sites 1000 feet from schools and playgrounds
- Allocate more funding to arrest drug dealers and end open-air drug scenes
- Establish a Community Advisory Board to formalize community engagement
- Collect data to hold SIS’s providers accountable for referring users to treatment
- Prioritize Treatment. Add treatment programs to NYC’s 36 Assembly Districts that are treatment deserts
Currently, Harlem’s Safe Consumption Site is located two blocks away from 9 schools with +4250 students and nearly 4000 residents – most of whom are people of color. Before adding more harm reduction services in this area, New York City and New York State should actually relocate some of the existing services in Harlem that brings people in needs from outside into Harlem. (Learn more on this page)
Please sign the Change.org petition. When you sign the petition, please MAKE SURE to add why you are signing and how this issue has affected you.
What else you can do to help to advocate for Harlem?
(1) Spread the words.
Copy the above message and send email to your network, e.g., building, block association, schools, PTA, community organizations, faith-based organizations.
Forward our posts on : Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and pass out our flyer
(2) Call elected officials:
- Governor Kathy Hochul 518-474-8390,
- Senator Cordell Cleare 518-455-2441,
- Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal 212-873-6368 or 518-455-5802,
- Senator Gustavo Rivera 718-933-2034 or 518-455-3395.
You can use a simple script to say ““I am calling to ask you to move the Safe Consumption Site away from the current location in Harlem’s 126th Street because it is across the street from a Pre-K school and within 2 blocks are 9 schools with 4250 students. Also, the current bill to legalize the site, s399 Safer Consumption Act, has too many loopholes, so it fails to hold the operator accountable for directing users to treatment and it grossly underestimate the cost to mitigate the negative impact on the community brought on by the site. To see more, go to www.change.org/CommunityHarmReduction”