Harlem Is Not a Dumping Ground ! Where are our Elected Officials when we need them most?!

The people of Harlem have had enough! In a neighborhood already saturated with drug treatment facilities, including One Point itself, residents are now confronting what many are calling a clear case of environmental injustice. Odyssey House, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit addiction treatment provider, is planning to build yet another facility, this time directly across the street from One Point, where families live and children walk to school.

And many are asking: Why here? Again? This is not treatment. It is containment. And Harlem is not a dumping ground. Odyssey House currently operates at least four facilities in East Harlem, including multiple locations clustered around East 121st Street. While other neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, Forest Hills, or Park Slope remain untouched, Harlem continues to absorb the city’s addiction and mental health infrastructure without any clear evidence that our community is benefiting.

On November 21, 2024, a 41-year-old man was fatally stabbed inside the Odyssey House facility at 219 East 121st Street. The suspect, another resident, was charged with second‑degree murder and weapon possession . Less than a decade earlier, on January 3, 2017, a one-year-old boy was discovered unresponsive in the lobby of the same facility and later pronounced dead at Harlem Hospital—he was a resident at the center . A child’s life cut tragically short in a space meant for healing.

According to Odyssey House’s 2021 Annual Report, only 68 percent of clients complete treatment. That means one in three leave the program unfinished. And when that happens, many stay in the area, disconnected from care, without housing, without employment, and Harlem is left to deal with the consequences. Residents have seen the fallout firsthand: open drug use on sidewalks, loitering near schools, and syringes discarded just steps from playgrounds. We have been forced to normalize trauma right outside our windows. But it’s not normal, and it’s not fair.

Odyssey House pulls in 38.2 million dollars annually, according to public financial records. More than three-quarters of that funding comes from taxpayer dollars and charitable donations. Meanwhile, their CEO earns nearly 400,000 dollars a year.

Yet despite those numbers, there is no transparent data showing how many Harlem residents are actually served by these programs. There is also no documented reinvestment back into our community. No support for our schools. No resources for the housing complexes. No relief for the families forced to coexist with this dense cluster of facilities.

The plan to build a new Odyssey House site right across from One Point, a drug treatment facility already embedded in the neighborhood, feels like a final straw. Of all the places in New York City, they chose to stack another center right in front of an existing one, in the middle of a residential block full of families and children. Whether that’s strategic or careless, it’s unacceptable.

The Harlem Community Is Demanding:

• A complete halt on Odyssey House expansion in Harlem
• A citywide audit of supportive housing placement across all five boroughs
• Transparent data on who these programs serve, and how
• Real reinvestment into communities burdened by these services

We are not against recovery. We support care, healing, and second chances. But we are against Harlem being the only neighborhood expected to carry the weight for the entire city.

And we are asking: Where are our elected officials? Mark Levine. Yusef Salaam. Senator Cordell Cleare. Are our voices falling on deaf ears? This fight is about more than one facility. It is about how New York City continues to treat its historically Black neighborhoods. It’s about accountability, equity, and respect. And it is about a community that refuses to stay silent any longer.