NOT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD –
Jan. 11, 2020 – Elsewhere, including in Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Michigan, communities have also thwarted the opening of such facilities. Treatment advocates say the resistance highlights how everyone seems to recognize the need for the facilities amid the ongoing opioid crisis — but bristle at putting them in their neighborhoods.
In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said drug overdoses spiked during the pandemic, registering over 100,000 overdose deaths from April 2020 to April 2021 — a U.S. record for a 12-month stretch. It was an increase of nearly 30% from the roughly 78,000 deaths for the same period the year before.
Many residents in Itasca, a middle-class community of 9,000, mounted a two-year battle against the Haymarket facility, saying they feared it would lead to an uptick in crime and lost tax revenue, as well as strain Itasca’s one-ambulance emergency service.
Some in Itasca and from nearby suburbs supported the plans, saying a dearth of facilities makes treatment for suburbanites less accessible.
Opponents held multiple street protests. During one in 2019, a supporter of the facility, Felicia Miceli, held a photo of Louie Miceli, her son who died in 2012 of a heroin overdose at 24, as marchers passed.
