12/31/19
12/31/19
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, D 44 ECEMBER 6-12, 2019 BTR
12/31/19
12/31/19
SACHR’s ribbon-cutting ceremony of their expanded facility on Friday, November 22.
Photo courtesy of St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction
Third Avenue BID,
SACHR program to
improve quality-of-life
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
Commemorating its 30-year anniversary,
St. Ann’s Corner of Harm
Reduction (SACHR) launched a new
program on Wdnesday, November 20
in partnership with the Third Avenue
Business Improvement District
to better improve the quality-of-life
in the south Bronx.
The Corner-to-Corner Good
Neighbor Program’s goal and purpose
is to promote community organizing,
neighborhood identity, and
harm reduction principles to reduce
stigma and address neighborhood
concerns of drug use and other issues.
SACHR’s grassroots work began
with a needle exchange program to
prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS
among intravenous drug users in
the south Bronx. Providing syringe
access and disposal continues to be
a critical part of its harm reduction
efforts.
“SACHR has a long-standing commitment
to our community,” said
Joyce Rivera, chief executive offi -
cer of SACHR. “First organized on
the streets of the south Bronx and
then at St. Ann’s Church, our 30-year
history has made serving the community
a priority of our work. The
Corner to Corner Good Neighbor
Program formalizes our external
work while renewing our roots in
organizing and neighborhood mobilization
while creating a holistic approach
to community that addresses
stigma and quality-of-life matters
head on.”
The program components include:
a peer-led neighborhood watch
program, community advisory council,
quarterly neighborhood organizing
workshops, implementation of
24/7 continuous access drop-in center
feasibility study, monthly harm
reduction education workshops,
streetscape and beautifi cation measures,
sidewalk maintenance, syringe
outreach response team,
syringe litter removal and street activation
programming.
SACHR and the Third Avenue
BID will provide regular briefi ngs
to community boards 1 and 2, the
Hunts Point Longwood Community
Coalition, and the Bronx Opioid Collective
Impact Project.
Michael Brady, executive director
of the Third Avenue BID, which promotes
growth, vitality and visibility
of the Bronx’s most traffi cked commercial
corridor, said the new program
sends a message about harm
reduction and drug use helping to
save lives.
“We have a lot of folks in the hub
who are working through their addiction
—whether it’s alcohol, cigarettes,
opioids or heroin, and the
Good Neighbor Program is a mechanism
by which those same individuals
can partake in a campaign to
actually value the neighborhood,”
Brady said. “So anything from syringe
litter cleanups, painting murals
and planting — all of those are
elements of the Good Neighbor Program.”
According to Brady, the goal is to
bring storeowners and businesses
together with peers to take back the
streets and build a collective value
in the community.
The organization began working
with SACHR roughly a year-and-ahalf
ago focusing on the opioid crisis
and substance misuse at the hub,
growing its partnership by creating
a 24/7 Drop-In Center for its most
vulnerable Bronxites, and other programs
to help the neighborhood.
“Throughout the yearlong-anda
half partnership that we’ve had
thus far, we have been able to get to
the paradigm in harm reduction as it
pertains to the business community
and really address the neighborhood
concerns that are associated with
drug use and fail,” Brady said.