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David, counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo, described Johnson as “the disruptor, the underdog, the fighter, and now the speaker of the New York City Council,” who “has never forgotten how important it is to remain humble, how important it is to fight for the things that absolutely matter.” Finally at the podium, Johnson, a second-term councilmember from the West Side’s District 3, took five minutes to offer thanks to a list of people that included a shout-out to each councilmember by first name. He then spoke of the 14,703 doors he knocked on during the 2017 campaign and how he continues to be inspired by those he met. “Each one of you has a unique incredible story and a unique set of life experiences and challenges that you’ve overcome,” he said. “You are what inspires me and motivates me every single day.” Johnson highlighted accomplishments, including a planned public park on W. 20th St., a new South Village historic district, 500 affordable housing units resulting from the Pier 40 negotiation, and a development with an indoor recreation facility and affordable supermarket. In spite of these wins, Johnson said, the city faces big challenges. “The affordability crisis that grips our city threatens the very existence of our neighborhoods,” he warned. “People who lived in the same community for their entire lives find themselves priced out, unable to afford their rent or even their groceries. Many working families are literally living paycheck to paycheck. One missed shift or one medical expense away from eviction or bankruptcy.” Johnson noted that the night before his inauguration ceremony, 61,000 people slept in shelters, 23,000 of them children under age 16. “We must do better,” he said, vowing to extend rent protections
and to work with state government “to finally once and for all close the loopholes that are allowing landlords to deregulate apartments.” Later, he noted that 22 percent of New Yorkers — 1.7 million people — are living below the poverty line. He made clear that affordable housing is a priority. He spoke out for small businesses that are unable to compete with “deep-pocketed chain stores,” subway riders who are experiencing “years of disinvestment in our infrastructure,” and also “shameful racial disparities that persist in nearly every aspect of life in our city, including life expectancy, health outcomes, criminal justice, and education.” Johnson himself then referred to his personal story, saying, “When I came out in 1999 in a small town of 5,000 people 30 miles north of Boston, when I came out to my family, when I came out at school, I was three months before that literally suicidal. I was clinically depressed and I did not want to live anymore because I couldn’t accept myself and I was scared the world wouldn’t accept me. But I came out and I got the support and love that I needed and ultimately I realized that I deserved. And that one moment of coming out was the chain reaction in a series of events.” Life events broadened Johnson’s perspective and brought him to New York. On this important mid-winter New York Sunday, he promised, “I will remember where I came from, I will remember the struggles that I faced, I will remember the adversity, and when difficult decisions have to be made, I will do it remembering all of you of course, but also the folks who aren’t here today, the single mom working two jobs, the public housing resident living in conditions that are not acceptable, the family whose landlord is harassing them, trying to deregulate where they live. I’ll remember these stories.”
PUBLISHER Jennifer Goodstein jgoodstein@cnglocal.com Manhattan Express, the newspaper for Midtown and the Upper East and Upper West Sides PUBLISHED BY
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an hour of training is needed to administer it correctly. The drug is, already, New York State’s response to the surge in opioid deaths. Emergency responders, homeless shelter staff and residents, and drug users and their friends and family can carry this kit to halt an overdose. That response, however, remains haphazard, depending on the lucky coincidence of a person carrying naloxone encountering the person overdosing. Cities all over the world have implemented a more organized response, allowing drug users to shoot up in clean, quiet surroundings using sterile equipment and having an overdose prevention worker steps away. These facilities conform to basic public health advice about heroin: “Don’t do it alone.” US criminal law, however, largely makes it unthinkable that drug users could legally meet up to shoot up. Their conduct is illegal, and landlords hosting such space could lose their building and health care workers could go to jail. There is no freedom of assembly for drug users even in a health facility. That is what Rosenthal’s bill, A.8534, would create by authorizing public spaces beyond the reach of the criminal law. It is macabre commentary on drug prohibition that proven public health policies are illegal without special legislation. There is an urgent need: By every measure deaths are going up. “Nearly 65,000 Americans died” — more deaths in one year than the total for the entire Vietnam War — Rosenthal said of the nation’s record level of opioid deaths, before decrying the drastic escalation of deaths locally in recent years. “Here in New York State, the overdose death rate increased by 32 percent,” she said of the increase from 2015 to 2016. “In New York City, it increased by an astounding 46 percent.” The city health department’s final count for 2016 overdose deaths was 1,347 — the sixth consecutive year of rising deaths from unintentional “poisonings.” “Safer consumption sites are neither controversial nor new,” Rosenthal noted, pointing out that the first one opened 32 years ago in Berne, Switzerland. “Since then they have opened in nearly 100 cities worldwide.” Rosenthal originally introduced her measure in 2016, but this year it is part of a concerted push to move legislation in the
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Assembly that will help the state break free from the shackles of a prohibitionist policy, which has failed, while giving users a hasslefree space for consuming drugs safely. Rosenthal was joined at the press conference by several Assembly colleagues, including fellow West Sider Richard Gottfried, who chairs the Health Committee, and Crystal Peoples-Stokes from Buffalo, the lead sponsor of A.3506, which permits adult-use of marijuana as is currently the law in a growing number of states. A fourth member of the Assembly on hand created a stir when she told the audience, which included public health workers, advocates, and families whose children had overdosed, that safe consumption spaces would offer comfort and support to people who today are shamed and isolated — and therefore at increased risk for fatal mistakes. “It provides a positive touch point,” said Brooklyn Assemblymember Diana Richardson. “We are being progressive and providing a safe space for guess what? Something they will do anyway.” Saying she had visited such a space, Richardson said, “The individual came through the door and they were actually able to interact with someone. The person didn’t judge them, the person welcomed them.” Then, with a sly smile, she added dryly, “A person using many substances isn’t welcomed in many places.” After the friendly greeting, Richardson explained, a user is “given clean materials… now we are talking about preventing hepatitis and a whole other host of diseases.” The concern such facilities show for the health of drug users is unique and increases the likelihood that health workers will establish vital bonds of trust with those users. This approach contrasts sharply with the tough love prohibitionist approach, which relies on the notion that substance abusers must hit bottom before remedial steps will be effective. Safe consumption spaces, based on the harm reduction philosophy behind needle exchange programs, instead aim to break the grip of hopelessness weighing on this stigmatized group, helping users identify personal competencies that could increase their sense of agency in taking charge of their lives. Charles King, the CEO of the AIDS services group Housing Works, told the press conference that safe consumption spaces are “about saving lives, but just as important are about offering hope.”
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Februar y 8, 2018
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