HARLEM — A former adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama is taking a stand against the saturation of drug clinics in Harlem and East Harlem.
Clyde Williams, 53, has reached out to NYU’s Law Center and the law firm Morrison & Foerster to come up with legal arguments to stop more clinics from opening in the area and making sure the current clinics are good neighbors.
Currently, more than one-third of all methadone clinics in Manhattan are in Harlem, he said.
“I’m sympathetic to the needs of those who struggle with drug addition of any kind and understand the rationale for such clinics,” he said. “But the entire city should bear the responsibility for this important social challenge, not just a few neighborhoods in Harlem and The Bronx.”
The legal options Williams is exploring involve arguing that the clinics are a nuisance by bringing homelessness, drug use and crime into the neighborhood while decreasing property values and halting economic development.
Another strategy is to look at the agreement between each clinic and its funding source to see if the clinics are violating any condition, such as not providing adequate security in and outside the premises. At the very least, this could lead to safer practices, according to NYU's memorandum.
While different groups have been protesting the clinics for decades, no one has taken the time to explore legal ways of dealing with the issue, Williams said.
The clinics attract drug addicts to the neighborhood who loiter in residential streets, some near churches, public parks and elementary schools, after they get treatment, said Walter Edwards, 77, chairman of the Harlem Business Alliance's board of directors.
Many of the patients drink and use drugs in public, urinate in public and get into fights, he added. Last September a man was stabbed to death after a fight broke out between two men waiting in line in front of one clinic.
Edwards, who has lived in Harlem since the 1950s, said the problem began back in the '60s and escalated into the '70s and '80s.
“It began to get to where in every family there is a drug addict, I don’t care who you are,” he said.
To combat Harlem’s crack and heroin epidemics, the city converted vacant buildings into clinics, Edwards added.
The problem has gotten so out of hand on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue that residents of the Casabe Houses for the Elderly on 121st Street are too afraid to walk to the nearby Pathmark.
“As far as the seniors are concerned, they will not walk up Lexington Avenue,” said Joe Clark, a resident. “They will not walk to 125th Street. They will walk around the corner to Third Avenue.”
Many seniors walk down to 116th Street to take the subway instead of going to 125th Street, he added.
Lexington Avenue, between 123rd and 125th streets, is particularly dangerous because men from the homeless shelter on Ward’s Island get dropped off there every day, said Arnaldo Segarra, the vice chair of the Casabe House.
The city’s Department of Homeless Services did not respond to repeated questions regarding what it does to ensure its clients do not loiter on Lexington Avenue all day.
Beth Israel Medical Center, which runs four methadone clinics in Harlem, has security measures in place to make sure its clients are not disturbing the quality of life in residential areas.
"We are also committed to the well-being of our neighbors: to that end, we have enacted both robust security procedures and community engagement practices during clinic hours to ensure that our clients remain focused and engaged within and around our clinic areas," said a spokeswoman.
"As part of their ongoing treatment, it is the expectation of our patients to remain free from illicit substances, and we actively monitor and evaluate potential active substance abuse.
For Williams, the fight to do something about the quality of life issues in Harlem started around 2012 when he was running for Congress against Charles Rangel.
He met and got the endorsement of Yolanda Sanchez, a Puerto Rican advocate and founding member of the Puerto Rican Association for Community Affairs (PRACA) who helped found East Harlem institutions like the Taino Towers, Casabe House and Boriken Health Center.
Although Sanchez died in 2012, Williams is still fighting to get city and state agencies to be held accountable for Harlem’s current situation.
“I made a commitment and a promise to her,” he said. “That no matter what happened I would continue to try to be helpful in this endeavor.”
