The state of Connecticut currently partners with 12 organizations to operate its Syringe Service Program (CTSSP), or state-sanctioned harm-reduction clinics. 

Essentially, Connecticut Department of Public Health (CTDPH) officials define syringe service programs (SSPs) as needle-exchange clinics; places where IV-drug users can trade in their dirty, used needles for clean ones, helping to curb the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C, two diseases that have traditionally run rampant among IV-drug users due to needle sharing. 

They are supposed to “serve as a safe, effective HIV prevention method for people who inject drugs (PWID) to exchange used syringes for sterile needles, lowering the risk of HIV transmission.” 

According to John Lockhart, a Connecticut real-estate developer, however, that no longer holds true. 

Last October, Lockhart submitted a FOIA request to the CTDPH, who recently provided him with a slew of documents regarding the state’s SSPs. The documents show that in 2019, CTSSP changed its policy from that of one-for-one needle exchange, where users are only given clean needles in exchange for dirty ones, to what is called needs-based distribution, where users are given clean needles regardless of whether they have dirty needles to dispose of. Any SSP in the state reliant on DPH funding must adhere to these guidelines.

Lockhart believes this change has led to a dramatic increase in used needle litter found in neighborhoods across the state. 

“Everybody’s been finding needles everywhere,” said Lockhart. “It’s a big problem, and for whatever reason, the state isn’t warning anybody about this.”

Per DPH numbers, in 2019, there was a 2,327.57% spike in needles distributed by SSPs that were not recollected.

From 2011-2018, only 114,693 distributed needles were not returned to SSPs, while from 2019-2023, there were 2,487,747 unreturned needles.

In 2019, there were 384,454 uncollected needles. “This amounted to more than three times the amount of needles lost in one year than in the previous eight years combined,” said Lockhart.

While Lockhart views these numbers as an obvious indicator that policy change has contributed to increased syringe litter, he’s felt his concerns have thus far gone unheard by the powers that be. Inside Investigator spoke with Mark Jenkins, Founder and CEO of the the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance (CTHRA), received comment from CTDPH, and spoke with long-time researcher Prof. Ricky Bluthenthal, whose studies helped pave the way for the state’s current SSP distribution model, all of whom denied Lockhart’s assertions that a change in needle distribution policy is to blame.

“My suspicion is that the needs-based [distribution] alone wouldn’t lead to more litter, all other things being equal, which is a big question, because in the studies that I’ve conducted, that’s not what happened,” said Bluthenthal. “My suspicion is that there’s something else going on that is leading to these sorts of episodes of litter.”

Lockhart moved to Connecticut about ten years ago to work in commercial real estate, taking over management of his family’s real estate business full-time in 2022. Lockhart purchased some property on New Haven’s Davenport Avenue in 2023, right in the heart of The Hill neighborhood, and now owns a total of two acres split across nine adjacent parcels. 

“I was actually trying to sell them at one point while I was still in brokerage,” said Lockhart. “But it seemed like this great investment and development opportunity that’s about a seven-minute walk from the Yale School of Medicine. And so that’s kind of how we got really involved in New Haven, was getting this project approved.”

Lockhart intends to turn the properties he owns into approximately 200 apartment units, ideally marketing them to Yale med students. Initially, his renovation plans didn’t make him many friends in the community. When Lockhart brought his proposal before the Hill North Community Management Team (HNCMT), they asked if he could guarantee that 20% of the units would be below market rate, but the best Lockhart was willing to offer was 5%.

“When John came and presented his proposal, at that time, he did not appear to be willing to adjust some things,” said Leslie Radcliffe, an advisor to HNCMT and community leader. “Of course, we had great concern about gentrification.”

A member of HNCMT, Miguel Pittman, described the board’s relationship with Lockhart as initially being “shaky.” Pittman, a long-time Hill resident, co-owns Sandra’s Next Generation, a soul-food restaurant on Congress Avenue. Pittman, like Lockhart, dabbles in real estate.

“It was just a project that the community felt was shoved down their throat,” said Pittman.

While Lockhart’s plans to turn around the property were initially slowed by COVID and high interest rates, Lockhart took a renewed interest in renovating in 2023. It was then that he noticed the issue of needle litter in the neighborhood.

“I had a big issue with people going in this one corner of the property and shooting up, and I had to shoo people out of there,” said Lockhart. “There’d be like 60 needles on the ground over there, super nasty. Even just walking around, you’ll just be walking on the sidewalk, and you’ll see a random used hypodermic needle here, there, underneath a bush.”

Once Lockhart took the issue of syringe litter upon himself, however, he was able to forge an unlikely alliance with community leaders. Since 2023, Lockhart has been working with HNCMT to try and rid the neighborhood of its ever-growing number of used needles. Lockhart said that while the crusade began as a business decision, he has since become “emotionally invested” in seeing it through. 

“The more time I’ve spent specifically with the Hill North management team and these people who are actually trying to make the neighborhood better – You want to help out,” said Lockhart. “I’ve actually met the people who are trying to make things better, but they don’t have like, all the power that they really need to do it right.”

Lockhart’s search for answers to the needle problem brought him to 555 Columbus Avenue, a church located only a few blocks from his Davenport property. Lockhart heard that the church had been operating as an SSP, which surprised him, as he knew its location would invite community backlash. Lockhart visited the church in October 2024 to see what was going on.

“I eventually went in and just walked into this place on my own and started asking some questions, and was kind of just like blown away, because there’s, you know, thousands of packaged needles,” said Lockhart. 

Lockhart discovered that the church was indeed operating as an SSP and that it was being operated under the umbrella of CTHRA. He questioned staff regarding their distribution policy and said he was told that needle returns were often estimated, leading him to doubt the ability of the clinic to properly track their return rates. After his visit, Lockhart said he emailed New Haven’s mayor, Justin Elicker, and started reaching out to DPH with questions regarding SSPs. 

Lockhart said that the lack of answers led to him filing his FOIA with DPH later that month. He received the documents he requested back in March and was shocked by what he uncovered.

“I was just floored,” said Lockhart.

The documents Lockhart received via FOIA help to reveal why state health officials decided to shift needle distribution policy, a topic DPH seems reticent to publicly explain, or even admit to having done.

“One-for-one exchange doesn’t mean fewer improperly discarded syringes,” read a DPH statement provided to Inside Investigator. “SSP clients dispose of used syringes in various ways, including returning them to the SSP Program either directly or through home delivery pick-up, disposing them at Syringe Disposal sites located at pharmacies, local health departments, and hospitals, and placing used syringes in a puncture-proof container and disposing them in the trash.”

The DPH’s SSP Guidelines provided via Lockhart’s FOIA give the best insight into the department’s rationale. 

“The goal of SSPs is to provide as close to 100 percent syringe coverage as possible, which means a sterile syringe for every injection of every IDU in a jurisdiction,” reads the guidelines. “Prior research has shown that the needs-based/negotiated distribution model is best at achieving the goal of reaching as close to 100 percent coverage as possible.”

Essentially, the thought process is that by providing users with more clean needles, there is less incentive for them to reuse needles, which can lead to a variety of negative health outcomes, or share them amongst one another, which can increase the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C.

Lockhart believes the numbers provided by DPH prove two things; first, that the SSPs were just as effective at reducing disease transmission prior to implementing needs-based distribution, and two, that the high number of needles being given out under needs-based distribution is contributing to syringe-litter.

In addition to needle return rates, Lockhart also requested DPH’s data regarding the HIV and Hepatitis C transmission rates of SSP participants. The state approved its first pilot SSP in New Haven in 1990, to reduce transmission from shared needles. To the SSPs’ credit, the DPH statistics showed remarkable success in this regard; in 2002, 321 SSP clients were newly diagnosed with HIV. In 2022, that number is 12, representing a 96% decrease. 

Lockhart acknowledged the SSPs’ effectiveness but also highlighted the fact that they were effective in doing so under the old one-for-one distribution model. There hasn’t been a year in which 50 or more new HIV cases were diagnosed by SSPs since 2007. In 2015, there were only 14. Lockhart argues that the DPH numbers show that needs-based distribution is an unnecessary step in the reduction of disease transmission.

“They do, they reduce HIV transmission,” admitted Lockhart of the SSPs. “But clearly here in Connecticut, they’ve plateaued. Around 2015, from the data that they gave us, there’s some sort of efficacy plateau.”

Per DPH numbers, the average rate of new HIV diagnoses among SSP participants from 2015-2018 was 15.5 clients per year. From 2019-2022, that rate declined ever so slightly to 13 per year. In the 8-year period preceding the state’s switch to needs-based distribution, only 2,819,620 needles were distributed by SSPs. In the five-year period since, SSPs have distributed 9,861,289 needles. 

By dividing the number of needles distributed by the reduction in cases, Lockhart deduced that it takes approximately 254,970 needles to reduce the number of newly diagnosed HIV SSP patients by one. Lockhart argues that this return on investment does not outweigh the potential impacts on the communities that house these SSPs.

“It’s actually having no effect on the mission, which is reducing HIV transmission, but they keep upping it anyway,” said Lockhart. “They’ve been totally hijacked just to give out needles for the sake of giving out needles. This has nothing to do with the original mission.”

The numbers provided to Lockhart via FOIA show an enormous increase in the number of unaccounted for needles. In 2018, the last year in which state SSPs operated on a one-for-one exchange policy, SSPs provided users with 631,470 clean needles, receiving 615,633 dirty needles in return: a return rate of approximately 97.5%. In 2019, the first year in which the new distribution method was implemented, SSPs provided users with 1,137,746 clean needles, receiving only 753,292 in return: a return rate of 66%.

DPH provided Lockhart with the yearly needle distribution and return numbers from 2011 to 2023; from 2011-2018, the state boasted a return rate of 96%. From 2019-2023, the return rate has dropped to 75%. While the return rates have risen significantly from 2021 onwards, from 69% in 2021 to 84% in 2022, they have yet to reach the same rates achieved under one-for-one distribution.

“The syringe service programs are giving out all these needles, and they don’t know where they’re going,” said Lockhart. “Nobody’s looking at these figures which basically every state is supposed to record, which is the amount given out and the amount gotten back by the SSPs, right? So that’s the only way to really confirm that they’re being safely disposed of, is if they’re brought back to the SSP, but nobody’s following that.”

Lockhart also noted that many of the studies used by harm reduction advocates, as well as the state, to advocate for the proposed benefits of SSPs were conducted prior to the implementation of needs-based distributions. One such claim made in the DPH’s 2023 Annual Report is that SSPs reduce the likelihood of needle-stick injuries among first responders and police officers.

“In terms of police needle stick stuff, that seems just not really studied enough,” said Lockhart. 

The fact sheet cites a study, conducted in Connecticut, that was published in 1995. The study evaluated the rate of needle-stick injuries among Hartford police officers in the six-months prior to the passage of PA 92-185, a law that decriminalized syringe possession and allowed pharmacies to sell up to ten syringes to anyone, and the six months after it. The study found six officer needlestick injuries in the 1,007 drug arrests made prior to the law’s passage.

Lockhart highlighted the fact that this study was conducted in the 1990s, when the state’s SSPs were in their infancy, and distributing significantly fewer needles. A 1992-93 DPH report made to the General Assembly on the efficacy of New Haven’s pilot SSPs, said that the SSPs, operating at that time on a one-for-one exchange model, only distributed 30,887 needles. Lockhart doubts that the results of such studies would stand up to today’s landscape, in which 2.47 million needles were distributed in 2023.

“All of these studies that the harm reduction groups put up to say that this increase in needles given out isn’t related to an increase in used syringe litter are just dated, where the scale of the programs is just not comparable to what they are now,” said Lockhart.

Lockhart’s FOIAs also uncovered documents that would imply that DPH decision makers are aware of the potential link between needs-based distribution and the possibility of increased syringe litter and needle-stick injury. 

DPH provided Lockhart with an email thread between DPH epidemiologist Ramon Rodriguez-Santana, who oversees CTSSP, and Liz Evans, Senior Director of Harm Reduction for Liberation Programs, a Fairfield County-based harm-reduction organization. One of the various social and addiction services provided by Liberation Programs is its mobile outreach vans, which operate as mobile SSPs.

Rodriguez-Santana’s first email to Evans contained a link to a news article published a day prior, which highlighted a church in Bridgeport that found hundreds of used hypodermic needles on its property. The article reported that “young children have been finding and playing with the needles, with at least one parent saying her 4-year-old daughter had to be treated at a local hospital after sticking herself with an insulin syringe that appeared to contain blood.”

The church in question, Shekinah Glory First Methodist Tabernacle, is located only a block and a half north of one of the stops taken by Liberty’s outreach vans, where they provide users with clean needles.

“Hi Liz, are you aware of this news from Bridgeport?” asked Rodriguez-Santana. “Is your staff checking the surroundings of the church to see if people are disposing of syringes incorrectly?”

Evans responded that she had spoken to a reporter as well as one of the church’s pastors, and that she and John Hamilton, Liberation’s President and CEO, made plans to visit him. 

“We will also meet with the staff at the church who do the cleaning to provide them with some sharp’s containers and tongs and training,” said Evans. “And of course provide them with our number (and my cell) so that if they have any other occurrences that we can be there very quickly.”

Rodriguez-Santana then urged Evans to make sure her staff reminds clients that they should be returning syringes to the SSP or properly disposing of them. He then mentioned a past conversation with Evans in which he addressed Liberation’s 52% needle return rate in 2023, when the state average was 82%. 

“Feel free to contact me for suggestions on how to increase your organization’s syringe return rate,” wrote Rodriguez-Santana. “It is very important to dispose of the syringes properly, so that it doesn’t generate negative press. The article in the paper regarding the syringes found around the church is an example of why we need to ensure that all syringes distributed are returned. We don’t need any stigma associated with our harm reduction efforts.”

Evans responded back by noting that the shift from one-for-one exchange to needs-based distribution “does come with its own challenges.” Evans said that Liberations makes “every effort to collect used syringes,” and that prior to 2024, they had done so “without a DPH contract.” 

“In terms of my past experiences, I’ve never operated a syringe distribution program with under 100% return rate – but it was done through additional efforts – that included locating disposal boxes at relevant sites which come with its own set of issues,” said Evans. 

Evans later shared with Inside Investigator what some of those difficulties may be. 

Evans said that Liberation “visited the church as soon as we became aware of an incident,” to provide its pastor with contact information, offer training on safe syringe disposal, and provide them safe disposal tools. 

“A clean-up of the churchyard was completed, including the removal of garbage, broken glass, and litter, as well as cutting the lawn,” said Evans. “No syringes were found during this community clean-up. Since then, we’ve made it regular practice to drive by the church multiple times a week to check the street in front, the church steps, the grassy areas, and the driveway.”

Evans said that Liberation was able to raise its 2023 return rate of 52% to 80% in 2024 through the use of DPH funds to hire two new staff, who assist with clean-up as a part of their duties.

One researcher cited several times in the state’s SSP guidelines was Ricky Bluthenthal, a distinguished professor for, and department chair of, USC’s Population and Public Health Sciences Department. Bluthenthal has published over 200 articles in various scientific journals, many of which analyze the public health implications of harm reduction initiatives, such as SSPs. One study determined that increasing syringe access to users effectively reduced HIV-risk behaviors without raising the rate of improper syringe disposal.

“It’s been best practice for decades,” said Bluthenthal. “One of the things that paper indicated pretty clearly was that giving more needles didn’t actually increase improper disposal.”

Bluthenthal said that there could be several reasons for increased syringe litter. He said that the syringes themselves could represent medical waste, or syringes used by diabetics, not drug users. He also said that harsh enforcement strategies could be to blame, saying that factors such as encampment sweeps that displace the homeless can end up leaving behind trash. Furthermore, the criminalization of syringes can incentivize users to discard them as quickly as possible, to clean themselves of any evidence.

When told of the decline in needle redemption rates since the implementation of needs-based distribution, Bluthenthal said that it “doesn’t tell me anything.”

“There are lots of ways to get rid of syringes that aren’t dangerous, right?” said Bluthenthal.

Bluthenthal found the number of syringes Lockhart collected to be “strange,” saying the numbers Lockhart found exceeded even what he would expect to find on a typical visit to Skid Row in Los Angeles.

“As someone who’s been looking at these issues for 35 years, I would look for a more local explanation, and temporally proximate explanation, to what’s going on in this person’s neighborhood,” said Bluthenthal. “Are there people being displaced? Are there diabetic 

syringes? I mean, there are like all kinds of things that could be going on now, you know?”

Evans’ response to Lockhart’s assertion was similar.

“It’s challenging to address broad or unclear statements without understanding the full scope of their perspective,” she said. “It’s possible that in the area they are referring to, the issue is more pronounced. There are patterns among unsheltered populations, and in certain areas, concentrations may be higher due to individuals’ shifting between locations.”

Bluthenthal sent over a few additional studies to further illuminate his point. One study found that cities with SSPs, compared to those without, contained less syringe litter. Another, conducted in San Francisco and published in 2011, found that while 67% of users admitted to improperly disposing of syringes at least once in the past 30 days, 82% of needle disposals were safe. It is unclear, however, what the method of SSP distribution was in either of these studies. 

The last study analyzed the impacts of the closure of a one-for-one SSP in Orange County, California. The SSP ran from 2016-2018 but was shut down because of community pushback. The study found that users were left with little access to clean needles, even though over-the-counter syringe sales were legal, due to stigma.

“If you go there shot out like a junkie, nine times out of ten they won’t sell them to you,” one respondent was quoted as saying.

The study also found that the issue of area syringe litter persisted after the SSP’s closure, while users reverted to the same health-adverse behaviors of reusing or sharing syringes, leading to an increased incidence in major abscesses, lack of access to Hep C testing, and increased desperation among users for antibiotics, because of injuries sustained from needle re-use.

Bluthenthal recommended Inside Investigator speak with Robert Heimer, a Professor of Epidemiology at Yale, who, like Bluthenthal, has also spent several decades studying these issues. When contacted, Heimer said he would be of limited use.

“I have heard nothing about this, so I cannot be of much help,” said Heimer. “We have some historical data, but it’s 25 years old. We (my research team & community contacts) have not been alerted to this particular issue.”

Furthermore, Heimer said that past studies of syringe litter in Hartford found that, more often than not, the syringes tested positive for insulin.

“When we tested discarded needles recovered in Hartford, we found it more contained insulin than blood suggestive of intravenous injection,” said Heimer. “So a priori attributing discard to people who use drugs is part of the stigma that drug users face all the time.”

Evans, of Liberation Programs, told Inside Investigator that needs-based distribution is a “pragmatic approach,” but that one of its challenges is “public perception.”

Mark Jenkins, CEO and Founder of CTHRA, provided another explanation for syringe litter; COVID.

“COVID changed a lot in the community,” said Jenkins. “There used to be rules, if you will – people didn’t use in public settings, prior to COVID, people didn’t use in playgrounds. People always hid in plain sight; the bathrooms, libraries, police stations, hospitals.”

Jenkins called these “public consumption spaces,” and said that when COVID shut most of them down, users were pushed into using in the street. Jenkins said that since COVID has removed the stigma surrounding public use, it has been hard to reinforce.

Jenkins was familiar with Lockhart; from past inquiries Lockhart has made, and past accusations Lockhart has levied against his organization. Jenkins put his opinion of Lockhart rather plainly.

“John is on some NIMBY [Not in My Backyard] shit,” said Jenkins.

Jenkins takes pride in his organization, which he said he “built out of a backpack.” Jenkins said he’s a veteran and former user himself but has been clean since April 6, 1997. His former experience as a former user gives him conviction in his belief in the mission of harm reduction.

“I’m also a person that didn’t get clean on his first or second time,” said Jenkins. “You know, I had 17 inpatient treatment centers under my belt before I finally surrendered. Different people are where there are at any given time, and we have to accept that, and we have to be willing to help them where they are, as many times as that takes.”

He shared his belief that harm reduction meets users where they are and helps connect them with the resources they need to quit when they’re ready, as well as the resources they need to survive long enough to reach that point. Diving into the data on one of CTHRA’s Hartford locations, Jenkins shared that last year it provided participants with over 6,000 Narcan kits and made 403 treatment referrals.

Jenkins went on to rebuke the claims made against him by Lockhart. 

“He says, like, stuff like, ‘I don’t know how your organization is still in operation with the lowest needle recollection rates of any approved organization in the state,’” recounted Jenkins. “Like, where do you get that information from?”

Jenkins said that despite having the highest distribution rate of any state SSP, CTHRA also has the highest recollection rate. He said that the organization distributed over a million syringes last year and recollects over 900,000 of them.

“We have seven cubic foot boxes that are collected,” said Jenkins. “Each of those boxes have four eight-gallon containers in them, and each of those eight gallons hold 1200 syringes.”

Furthermore, Jenkins said that the state SSP guidelines do not tell the full story. He argued that each SSP has wiggle room to set their own distribution limits and said that CTHRA has never stopped operating as a needle-exchange. He said that even when the state operated under one-for-one exchanges, users could receive up to 30 syringes on their first consultation and that, even now, CTHRA limits the number of syringes it gives back depending upon how many needles a returning participant brings back to the clinic.

“It’s still based upon the exchange,” said Jenkins. “You have to have limits, otherwise people take advantage of situations, that’s just unfortunately the way it is.”

Lockhart uncovered statistical discrepancies regarding CTHRA’s 2023 syringe distribution numbers. Lockhart found these discrepancies in CTHRA’s Form 990 and their reports to DPH. He noted the organization’s 990 to have reported 6,602 transactions at one of its Hartford SSP locations, while DPH numbers reflect 8,674. Similarly, Lockhart found them to have reported having made 3,809 transactions at one of their mobile outreach vans while having reported 5,477 to the state. Lockhart believes these differences indicate improper tracking.

Jenkins also argued that the discrepancies found between the numbers stated on his organization’s Form 990 and the state’s numbers are trivial. He asserted that the 990s exist to prove expenditures and that his 990s do just that. Jenkins said CTHRA has not failed a single audit nor had to make a single line correction.

“’It’s not so much about accuracy of how many syringes, but of our expenditures,” said Jenkins of the 990. “Do you think the IRS cares two shits about syringes, that number? I’m not saying it’s not important, but do you think they care about that, or do they care about the actual finances?”

Lockhart indicated to Inside Investigator his belief that CTHRA was improperly tracking its syringes via its use of “guesstimations,” as Jenkins himself phrased it, regarding the measurement of large syringe returns. Jenkins said that their syringe recollection estimates follow a stringent standard. Jenkins said that through information sharing with other harm reduction groups, CTHRA can accurately determine how many syringes can be fit when packed into different containers, as well as their weights when fully packed. 

Essentially, Jenkins said that CTHRA uses both weight and type of container in the instance of large returns to accurately determine the number of syringes returned without individually counting each syringe.

“We know a personal shot container will handle up to 25 syringes,” said Jenkins. “We know that a one-quart will hold up to 80 syringes, you know, normally packed, and so on and so forth.”

Furthermore, Jenkins said that his SSPs provide participants with four different kinds of sharps containers to ensure that they dispose of their syringes properly. They also conduct home pick-ups, so those who don’t know the best way to dispose of their needles can call their SSP and someone will come to their home to collect them.

Jenkins also implied that some of the blame can be attributed to municipalities. He said that CTHRA used to maintain a contract with New Haven city officials, and that they currently maintain one with the city of Hartford. 

“The city of Hartford always paid a hell of a lot more than the city of New Haven,” said Jenkins. 

Since 2023, the Yale School of Medicine has taken over the syringe disposal contract, receiving $25,000 this year for doing so. Evans said that Liberation does not have a municipal clean-up contract in Bridgeport and noted that a lack of municipal support can lead to community pushback against SSPs. 

“Without city support for clean-up infrastructure, the burden of disposal falls on the community, which can lead to frustration and pushbacks,” said Evans. “A well-maintained public disposal infrastructure, combined with low-barrier access to care and referrals, ensures that participants have convenient ways to safely dispose of syringes and access the support they need.”

She noted that the most difficult part of clean-up is “the need for coordination and collaboration.”

“Effective, widespread syringe clean-up requires a concerted effort across city departments, state agencies, public facilities and the private sector,” said Evans. “This includes the installation of syringe disposal containers at multiple locations, such as community partner agencies, health departments, and other high-traffic public spaces.”

The Hill neighborhood, located just south of Downtown New Haven, has long been a working-class and economically depressed region of the city. Lockhart took Inside Investigator on a tour of the neighborhood to show how ubiquitous an issue that IV drug use and its subsequent litter poses the community.  The two high-syringe locations he found were Evergreen Cemetery, running alongside Davenport Ave, and St. Bernard’s Cemetery, running alongside Columbus Ave.

“It really seemed to be in the immediate vicinity of the programs, where they go and shoot up,” said Lockhart.

The Hill has no shortage of addiction services programming. Congress Ave is home both to the APT Foundation, which provides methadone to over a thousand users, and Yale’s Cornell Hill-Scott Clinic, which provides addiction services and operates a mobile outreach van that also acts as an SSP. While Lockhart did admit that it would be hard for him to tie back each syringe to an SSP without a “man on the inside,” he believes the proximity of common dumping grounds to SSPs indicates a clear link.

Lockhart showed a patch of St. Bernard’s, located right across the street from the CTHRA ran-SSP at 555 Columbus Ave. Hidden behind a few overgrown tombstones that have been misplaced by a bramble of small trees and brush, is debris indicative of use; tattered clothes, used syringes, countless orange syringe caps, and a slew of wrappers. One of the wrappers read, “CTHRA: Overdose Prevention.”

Lockhart revealed himself to be a capable investigator. In addition to the contacts he’s made in HNCMT, he’s taken it upon himself to hire local users as “informants,” giving him an idea of where users buy and use, and where dealers hang and sell. He’s employed the help of another local man, one of his tenants in another property, to pick up the needle litter and relay him more information. 

Lockhart noted the apartments at 206 Davenport as being another site commonly used to shoot up; walking past, a couple stood inches from the sidewalk huddled under a blanket, flicking a lighter repeatedly, presumably to heat either a pipe or a spoon. He noted the several delis dotting Davenport, saying neighborhood sources confirmed to him that they’re used as dealing spots. Masked men in hoodies stood out front, hands in pockets, their bicycles leaning on kickstands.

Lockhart said that in 24 days, he and his assistant have picked up approximately 760 needles. Lockhart said that, in his experience, even the inclusion of public disposal methods, like suggested by Evans, seem to be ineffective. Lockhart said he’s collected approximately 60 needles in the immediate vicinity of the syringe tree located in front of Evergreen Cemetery, on the corner of Davenport and Winthrop Ave.

“Even since Thursday, I’ve had one of the guys who worked for me in New Haven picking up needles,” said Lockhart. “We already had, over 300 just from last Thursday to today, we’re getting close to 400 needles picked up in the Hill neighborhood, and it’s a big problem.”

Both Radcliffe and Pittman proved to be outspoken critics of the programming in their neighborhood, sharing the belief that it invites unwanted activity. 

“There’s nothing wrong with NIMBY,” said Radcliffe with a chuckle. 

Radcliffe bought a house in the Hill in 2009, while Pittman, who also lives in the neighborhood, said he began working for his father in the community in the 70’s. Pittman remembers the neighborhood being rough back then.

“We had a lot of soldiers that was coming back from the Vietnam War,” said Pittman. “And during that time, you know, they got hooked on heroin, and heroin and other drugs ran rampantly in our neighborhood.”

Pittman said that the neighborhood started to take a turn for the better in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but that recently, the recurrence of open drug use has begun to remind him of the 70’s all over again.

“I would say that when the APT Foundation came about, it really reminds me of the problems that we had when the Vietnam veterans came back,” said Pittman. “You have a flood of, I would say, drug activity was concentrated near that particular organization.”

The APT Foundation has been working out of its 495 Congress Ave location since the early 2000’s. After years of pressure from Hill residents, a plan to move the Foundation’s methadone distribution to Long Wharf is now two years in the making.

Radcliffe cited the playground of John C. Daniel school and a community garden on Steven Street as areas in which the community has had problems with syringe litter in the past. Both said that the impact of the syringe litter isn’t just physical, but psychological.

“When you’re walking down the street with your kids and you see needles all over the place, it’s not a good feeling,” said Pittman. “It’s not a good look for the neighborhood.”

Both said that open drug use has become a normalized behavior for children of the community to witness, when it shouldn’t be.

“Our children are growing up thinking this is normal,” said Radcliffe. “They see drug use and needles as just part of their everyday environment. It’s heartbreaking how desensitized they’ve become.”

In speaking to community members and harm-reduction advocates it is clear they have a fundamental disagreement over the efficacy and ethics of harm-reduction overall. While Lockhart showed some level of understanding for the work SSPs do, admitting that they have effectively reduced disease transmission rates, Radcliffe and Pittman both expressed the opinion that harm reduction wasn’t enough.

“I would like to see more resources and effort put in to getting these folks off of the drug,” said Radcliffe. “That’s the harm reduction for me right there. Making it easier to use drugs does not reduce the use of drugs.”

Pittman said that harm reduction is akin to “putting a band-aid on a wound that really needed stitches.” For him, there is no “happy medium” to be met between neighborhood residents and neighborhood clinics.

“I don’t think it should be a happy medium,” said Pittman. “I think that they should stop the program altogether, until they get their act together and figure out what’s the best way of handling this particular issue.”

Lockhart agreed that more focus should go towards getting people off drugs, instead of just reducing the harm associated with their use, but also offered what he thought were reasonable compromises for the clinics operating in their current capacity. He brought up the idea of making SSP needles easily identifiable so that the state can hold them more readily accountable for any litter, an idea already implemented in other states’ programs.

“I think that this is, fundamentally, an issue of the state not regulating itself effectively,” said Lockhart. “There need to be penalties or something, something to financially punish these groups. If they can’t control the syringe letter, then they shouldn’t be allowed to hand out needles.”

Evans made the novel suggestion of allocating some of the state’s opioid settlement funds towards community-SSP collaboration, such as clean-up efforts. 

Radcliffe said that while she hopes for increased accountability from the clinics, and increased cooperation from city departments moving forward, changes must first start within the community itself.

“We can’t leave it in the hands of the agencies,” said Radcliffe. “It has to be community driven.”

Radcliffe repeatedly hammered home the point that the Hill suffers from low political and civic participation, and said that until the neighborhood comes together in large enough numbers to make their voices heard, it will never get the attention of city officials.

“I would be hard pressed to embarrass myself by going to someone else, you know, and saying, ‘We need your help,’ when we don’t even do what it is we can do,” said Radcliffe. 

Radcliffe saif that the HNCMT intended to invite department heads and DPH officials to their April 8 meeting, so that Lockhart could present his findings and residents could present their comments, concerns and demands regarding the issue. That did not occur, as they could not get enough residents to agree to show.

 “The comments that have been made from community members, on why they don’t come to the management team meetings, is because we don’t address those things that are of concern to them, but we won’t know what is of concern to them unless they come to the management team meetings,” said Radcliffe at the April 8 meeting. “So, it’s almost like a Catch-22 situation.”

Jenkins said that he understood the community’s concerns completely and admitted himself that there would always be bad actors in any system, including SSP participants.

“I’m not going to say that, you know, my people are not at fault – that’s bullshit,” said Jenkins. “Yes, we do have some people who are very irresponsible, and they discard stuff where they shouldn’t. I’m not proud of it, nor do I make excuses for it.”

Jenkins said that this issue is one that needs to be addressed systematically and that there should be more resources allocated by the municipalities themselves to help address the issue of syringe cleanup. Jenkins even supported the idea of providing financial incentive to SSP participants who take it upon themselves to help clean up.

“Who best to clean that up than the people who also participate?” said Jenkins. “And so, we do need funding. We have to find ways to fund collection to be done by some of those very same people. Give them, give them something productive to do, right?”

Ultimately, Jenkins said that he remains committed to working with community members to ensure that their concerns are met, without disrupting the work being done to reduce his organization’s services to those that need it.

“I am not some crusader who’s come in to do this work,” said Jenkins. “I’m a vested homeowner from my community – I live and work in the community that I’m in, I understand the challenges associated with this, and as such, instruct my staff so that there is less of a footprint.”

Jenkins said that however his organization can work with the communities it serves, he’s “100% for it, behind it, and we will support it.”

Evans said that meeting the needs of neighborhood residents and users is a team effort.

“The entire community must collaborate for a coordinated response, as these issues affect everyone,” said Evans. “Therefore, municipal partnerships, improved coordination between city and state agencies, and long-term funding strategies for syringe disposal and community engagement are necessary.”

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