Tag: @NYSOASAS

Oversaturation in CB11

East Harlem has 14% of NYC’s opioid treatment capacities but only 1.5% of NYC’s population

A resident of CB11 has undertaken an amazing analysis of how oversaturated East Harlem is:

While East Harlem has 1.5% of New York City’s population, it has 13.6% of New York City’s drug treatment capacity, according to data as of 2019 from NY agency OASAS. The graphic below illustrates how severely East Harlem is oversaturated with drug treatment facilities. This unfair social injustice MUST END!

East Harlem has 1.5% of population but 13.6% of drug treatment capacity
Data source: NYC Government OASAS Agency as a FOIL request by Y Pielet as of April 2019

With so many patients commuting into East Harlem for drug treatment, our district is overburdened while already struggling with other social, environmental, economic, and educational issues. Petition to your elected officials – Send Email or call them -to either dramatically reduce our 13.6% burden or perhaps allocate 13.6% of New York City’s budget as a compensation for this injustice.

Drilling down to the data, we can see that Beth Israel Medical Center and Harlem East Life Plan alone contribute to nearly 60% of the capacity. Elected officials should immediately discuss ways to reduce this capacity.

Beth Israel and Harlem East Life Plan represent 60% of the district's capacity

As for which district is not receiving its fair share of drug treatment capacities? Data speaks for itself

Manhattan is oversaturated with drug treatment capacities

Where Are They From?

The Greater Harlem Coalition has researched and repeatedly proven the oversaturation of substance use programs in Harlem and East Harlem using data from the agencies responsible. Our neighborhood hosts many more addiction programs than are justified by our population, by our addiction rates, or even by the drug related (overdose) death rate.

Given this, it is logical to ask, “Where then, do the patients who are admitted to New York City addiction programs, come from?

Using a 2020 FOIL request regarding admission data, we have mapped the home addresses of patients who attend NYC’s substance abuse programs. The result is national. Residents of San Diego, Maine, Miami Beach, and even Anchorage Alaska, are admitted to New York addiction programs.

In the following maps, the red dots indicate the home addresses of people who are admitted to New York City’s addiction programs. The larger and darker the red dots, the greater number of admitted patients.

From:

Admissions to NYS OASAS‐certified Chemical Dependence Treatment Programs Located in NYC by Zip Code of Residence, from March 1, 2019 through February 29, 2020: NYS OASAS Data Warehouse, CDS extract of 8/30/2020

To see the live map (you can hover over a dot to learn more):

New FOIL Data from OASAS

With only 8% of the admission to addiction programs, over 19% of all the Opioid Treatment Programs in New York City are located in Harlem and East Harlem.

In August the Greater Harlem Coalition submitted a FOIL request to OASAS, the NYS agency that licenses every single addiction program in New York State (and who refuses to meet with HNBA, State Assembly Member Robert Rodriguez, or The Greater Harlem Coalition…) in order to discuss their decades-long practice of locating addiction programs in Black and Latinx majority communities like Harlem and East Harlem that wealthier and whiter neighborhoods reject. This striking example of systemic racism is proven by comparing community need with the number of programs and/or the capacity totals of these programs.

Quite simply, Harlem and East Harlem have an oversaturation of programs which serve people from outside our community and who commute in for treatment, then (frequently) simply hang out on our streets.

The OASAS 2018 FOIL data from (ABOVE – obtained by the Sugar Hill Concerned Neighbors group) indicated that over 19% of all the Opioid Treatment Programs in New York City are located here, in Harlem and East Harlem. The August 2020 FOIL request we recently received (BELOW – although incomplete – we will be resubmitting the request) indicates that Harlemites form 8% of the admissions to New York City’s addiction programs

While we are still working on getting the data for community admissions (not just NYC wide admissions), there is clear consistency between this 2020 data, and the 2017 data: Harlem and East Harlem are home to approximately 7 – 8% of people admitted to addiction programs.

The proof, therefore, for systemic racism is clear. While only home to 7 – 8% of addiction admissions, OASAS and the NYC Department of Health have for decades packed programs in our community to the point where we have 2.5 times the number of programs the addiction rate data would warrant.

Opioid Treatment Deserts

While Harlem is oversaturated with 18% of drug treatment capacities, many districts have no such capacities whatsoever

The distribution of Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs) reflects the historic and ongoing medical redlining of low-income communities of color. This map of New York City shows (in red) Community Districts that have little or no OASAS licensed programs to support their opioid-addicted residents. As a result, their community members must commute to other, oversaturated neighborhoods for treatment.

Community Districts in red have an Opioid Treatment Program capacity of under 100 for their entire community.
Community Districts in red have an Opioid Treatment Program capacity of under 100 for their entire community.

Oversaturation by Community District (Community Board)

Graph illustrating the capacity of OASAS-certified OTPs
OASAS is oversaturating East Harlem

This visualization illustrates how East Harlem is oversaturated by OASAS. Given that 84% of all opioid treatment programs in CB11 commute into East Harlem from other Community Districts, our community is shouldering far more than its fair share.

East Harlem Burdened By More Than Its Fair-Share

East Harlem (in red, below) hosts a disproportionate number of OASAS-licensed Opioid Treatment Programs, that wealthier zip codes have rejected. This graph clearly illustrates that the NYS Office of Addiction Services and Supports applies discriminatory medical redlining, forcing low-income communities of color to bear more than their fair share of programs.

OASAS Licensed Opioid Treatment Program Capacity Totals (by Zip Code)

Staten Island v Harlem (Part 2)

In 2018 Staten Island had 50% more premature drug-related deaths than Harlem, yet Harlem has 6 times the Opioid Treatment Program capacity. As a result, many Staten Islanders have to travel to other boroughs (and to Harlem, for example) for help in their struggle with addiction.

OASAS Licensed Opioid Treatment Program Capacity – 2018

The City: Complaints from Harlem of Mount Sinai’s planned clinic

GHC Protest At Mt. Sinai Meeting With Political Leaders, Mentioned In “The City “ – 092719

By Rachel Holliday Smith

On West 124th Street, Mount Sinai Hospital has been planning for more than a year to open a new health facility.

In its current form, the Mt. Sinai outpatient clinic, set for a late-2021 opening, would include primary and specialty care as well as mental health treatment for children, teens and adults.

On the block Mt. Sinai is eyeing, there are multiple methadone clinics, a sliding-scale health center and at least two homeless shelters.

The Greater Harlem Coalition was founded last year to fight the Mount Sinai facility and bring attention to the concentration of social and health services in East and Central Harlem as a problem.

The protesters’ message was clear: the neighborhood is already doing more than its fair share, and they shouldn’t have to shoulder more services.

On a map of the density of mental health programs the group compiled from state and city health data, Harlem is shaded dark gray. Their analysis found Harlem has just 5% of New York City’s population but 15% of its mental health programs.

Data from the state’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) obtained by the coalition through a Freedom of Information Law request shows that while 6.9% of people in New York City OASAS-certified treatment programs for opioid addiction are Harlem residents, nearly a fifth (19.1%) of opioid treatment programs are located there as well.

Shawn Hill, a co-founder of the Coalition told the crowd, “Every time you feel overburdened, every time you feel that it’s too much — you are absolutely correct. And we have the data to back that up,”

For full article clink here:

https://thecity.nyc/2019/09/harlem-overburdened-with-clinics-neighbors-complain.html

Protest against Mt. Sinai @ MBP Gale Brewer’s Harlem office

Come out and protest the over saturation of addiction services in greater Harlem!

Tuesday, September 24, 2019
10:30am – 11:00am
Gale Brewer’s Office
Manhattan Borough President
431 West 125th Street

A reminder that we need you to join us at The Greater Harlem Coalition’s protest from 10:30-11:00 in front of Gale Brewer’s office at 431 West 125th Street, on Tuesday, September 24th, 2019.

At 11:00 the Borough President will host a meeting with local politicians, their staff, representatives from our Coalition, representatives from MMPCIA, and representatives from Mount Sinai.  We need you to join the 10:30 protest in front of the meeting location so all attendees have to pass by the community who will be most affected by Mount Sinai’s decision.

Please make every effort to attend.  Spread the word.  Our community is already oversaturated, and bringing in an additional 2,400 more mental health and substance abuse clients into the heart of Harlem will be devastating to the community. 

Protest Against Mount Sinai’s expansion of Substance Abuse Clinics in Harlem

Tuesday, May 28th at 5:30 PM, at 1470 Madison Avenue, Room 5-101

Next Tuesday, Mount Sinai will host a Community Advisory Board Meeting where they will discuss the proposed move of 2,500 mental health and substance abuse clients from Morningside Heights to West 124th Street.  

This meeting is about your block, your subway station, your streets, and your community. 

The meeting will take place on Tuesday, May 28th at 5:30 PM, at 1470 Madison Avenue, Room 5-101. We need you to encourage your neighbors to join, to bring your children, and to spread the word on your block by posting the attached flyer and emailing your friends living and working in Harlem. Our goal to have 1,000 members of the community there to show Mount Sinai exactly how Harlem feels about their proposal. 

Please wear a GREEN shirt if you can, which will identify you as part of the Greater Harlem Coalition. Bring/Draw/Print/Create a poster, a sign, a banner or have your kids do it! 

SCHEDULE: 

5:00 – 5:25 PM – Meet at 1470 Madison Avenue (between 101st and 102nd Streets) to march in front of the entrance of the hospital 

5:30 PM – Attend and speak out at the Community Advisory Board Meeting in Room 5-101, 1470 Madison Avenue 

We need your voice to demand that Mount Sinai commit to reducing their contribution to the over saturation of Harlem.