Addiction Anguish Heard On The Doors

Steven Fontanez is running out of time. He has only a few days left to stay at a sober housing program, and he hasn’t had luck finding an apartment.

Giselle Orosco is running out of patience. She’s tired of guessing whether the people who lie down outside her house are overdosing or merely asleep.

Angel Hubbard is running to be an alder for them both.

On Saturday morning, she heard again and again about a homelessness and addiction crisis affecting Ward 3 in the northern section of the Hill.

Hubbard, a home healthcare provider and the current Democratic Party Ward 3 co-chair, is running against local restaurateur Miguel Pittman to fill a vacant seat on the Board of Alders after former alder Ron Hurt resigned.

They are running in a special election on Monday, Sept. 16.

Hubbard set out with a group of canvassers on Saturday to leave flyers and inform voters of her candidacy. She was joined by Mayor Justin Elicker, Ward 4 Alder Evelyn Rodriguez, city Chief of Staff Sean Matteson, and a number of friends, neighbors, and cousins.

Hubbard and Elicker knocked doors as a team, focusing on Davenport Avenue.

When Orosco answered their door knock, Hubbard immediately exclaimed, ​“I went to school with you! Wilbur Cross, class of ​’02?”

Hubbard introduced herself as an alder candidate, and explained that she lives down the street. She pitched herself as someone committed to being available and responsive to residents’ concerns. ​“What you see is what I see,” she said, before asking Orosco for any concerns she has about the neighborhood.

“My mom, she doesn’t like them sleeping on the floor,” Orosco said, referring to people hanging out in front of the corner store on her block. ​“Sometimes, she’s scared they’re dead. She calls the ambulance.”

Elicker praised Orosco’s mom for calling for help. ​“We started a program called Elm City COMPASS,” he added, explaining the city initiative that sends street outreach and peer support workers to help people having a mental health or addiction crisis. COMPASS has recently begun offering 23-hour beds for people who need support but not emergency medical care. Elicker provided Orosco with contact information for COMPASS.

By the end of the conversation, Orosco said she’d come out to vote on the 16th, promising to cast her ballot for Hubbard.

Over the course of the morning, Hubbard jotted down requests for tree trimming, speed bumps, and a street sign fix. More than anything else, the problem of addiction and loitering in the neighborhood came up in conversation again and again.

The Hill is a neighborhood where people from all over the city and beyond come to seek life-saving treatment from several recovery service providers — and where others have found a prime opportunity to boost sales of addictive substances, according to patients and neighbors over the years.

“These junkies are in my backyard, leaving needles,” said Belinda Moss.

“On your property?” asked Elicker.

“Yeah!” Moss replied, explaining that people frequently wander through. Her daughter, she added, has ​“got a little girl.”

On Saturday morning, Elicker and Hubbard encountered dozens of people touched in some way by the crisis — some who appeared to be high and wandering the streets, some who are working hard to maintain sobriety, some who regularly clean up paraphernalia, and at least one woman on the brink of estrangement from a daughter experiencing addiction.

“I will never judge anyone for having an addiction. We do need programs,” Hubbard said.

She said she doesn’t have a specific plan to address addiction and homelessness — ​“I will never make false promises” — though she has previously named loitering and increasing police presence as top priorities for her campaign.

“It’s not just a Ward 3 issue — it’s a statewide issue, a national issue” that will require collaboration to tackle, she said. As a hopeful alder, she envisions listening to constituent concerns and making sure that someone in the city is working to address them.

As Hubbard and Elicker walked down Davenport, a man approached them. ​“I’ve been on the hunt for you!” he told Elicker upon recognizing him as the mayor.

Elicker laughed nervously. ​“On the hunt for me how?”

The man launched into an explanation of an international murder conspiracy he believes has infiltrated Yale and the city. He followed Hubbard and Elicker for half a block after their conversation ended, before eventually walking away.

It's Hard To Find Housing

Eventually, the pair knocked on the door of a Columbus House sober home, where clients Rafael Rodriguez and Steven Fontanez decided to register to vote on the spot.

Both men are living in the home alongside nearly 20 others recovering from homelessness and addiction. Both aspire to use their experiences to help others navigate the throes of substance use disorder.

Fontanez, who’s stayed at Columbus House for nearly three months, said he’s training to be an addiction recovery coach through CCAR (Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery) and Gateway Community College. Rodriguez, who started in the program a few days ago, said he hopes to follow in Fontanez’ footsteps.

“I know that program!” Hubbard said, high-fiving them both.

The program has a 90-day stay limit, and Fontanez has nearly reached that deadline — but he still hasn’t found another place to live. Asked what changes he wants to see in the neighborhood, he responded that ​“staying here longer until you get housing” and ​“finding people work.” He doesn’t know where he’ll go next, he said, but he can’t let himself lose hope. ​“God is on my side.”

“I can relate,” Hubbard said later, referring to the struggle of finding an affordable place to live. ​“I’m not in a program, but I know if I was to need to look for a place, it would be hard for me.”

She told Columbus House staffer Valerie Boyd that she’d come back to the house soon to speak with more residents; Boyd asked her to come with volunteer opportunities.

Before the canvassers left, Boyd implored them to focus on building more housing. ​“Find us a field somewhere and open up some homes,” she said. ​“The most important thing is housing.”

Housing, Boyd argued, is at the root of the addiction that so deeply affects the neighborhood. Many of her clients eventually end up homeless again, she said. ​“They don’t have nowhere to go.” Amidst that stress, some return to using drugs — and the cycle begins all over again, as the neighborhood waits for change.

If you are struggling with substance use, you are not alone. Local and national resources are available at https://connectgnh.org/. The Drug Free CT treatment hotline is 1 – 800-563‑4086. The Never Use Alone hotline is 1 – 800 – 484‑3731.