What has NYC done with millions in opioid settlement money?

Plus some Olympians, where to sail and pretend you're going for gold, and podcasts #87

Oh, you might have to buy all new garbage cans soon.

New York City received tens of millions of dollars in opioid settlement money to help people addicted and recovering and trying to stay alive in spite of a highly addictive drug that flooded into their communities.

But how the city has spent the more than $60 million it says it’s spent is still a mystery, my colleagues Gwynne Hogan and Ella Napack reported this week.

That’s just one of the money mysteries stemming from this settlement, at a time when people keep dying. 

“Our dollars are not getting to those communities,” Joyce Rivera, a board member and executive director of St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction in the South Bronx, which has the highest rate of overdoses in the state. 

“It is reprehensible.”

The statistics in New York City are dismal; someone dies of a drug overdose here every three hours, according to data released by the health department in May.

Opioids were involved in more than 87% of all overdose deaths, with parts of the Bronx, central Brooklyn, upper Manhattan, northern Staten Island and Rockaway with the highest rates of overdose deaths.

I often think of this story my friend and colleague Nick wrote for DNAinfo in 2017, about Staten Island – or “Heroin Island” – and what families go through as their loved ones get prescribed pills and quickly get addicted. (One interesting factoid from this: The island’s high percentage of city employees, with good health insurance, is “an unexpected source of the problem.”)

Christopher Perrotto overdosed in 2011. His mom told Nick six years later about how she’s living six years after. 

"I kicked him out and he died," she said. "I live with that guilt every day of my life. Why didn't I just stand by his side?"

Many years later, families and friends relive this every day. Every three hours. 

Meanwhile, advocates and people working in harm reduction and other recovery programs are just trying to see how the city is spending millions of dollars that’s supposed to be used to help.

“The Bronx is dying and it is really unacceptable,” Rivera said.

You can read the full story here.

Other interesting stories
Train like an Olympian (or just have fun) in New York City, without guide [THE CITY]
Are you with the birds or are you with the drones? [AP]
Retired New York politicians on when they knew it was time to hang it up [WNYC]
A Chinatown gang leader is trying to buy a stake in the East Broadway Mall [DN]
”Striving for a Better New York PAC” is sending money out of state [POLITICO]
The ghost newsstands haunting the city’s subways [THE CITY]
Buns of steal! [NY POST]

Also, this week I went to the Brownsville Recreation Center for a press conference, and I didn’t realize until I got out front that the last time I visited was in the spring of 2020 to write this story. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago, and the feelings of uncertainty and desperation came flooding back. I’m sharing because maybe somebody reading this also sometimes becomes overwhelmed with memory and emotion from a deadly pandemic that didn’t seem to go away, and it’s OK to hide for a bit and feel the emotion before trying to ask the mayor about Parks funding, like I had to do this week.

🎧LISTEN🎧 
If simply reading my words isn’t enough, you can listen to our talk about the mayor on FAQ and then Jeff Mays and I joined Errol Louis for his podcast.

We are more than halfway through the year, so here are a few of the songs added to my annual playlist (NOT the one Spotify makes for me automatically, which is not as curated/usually more embarrassing.)

“Moonshake” by CAN
”Save It for Later” by Eddie Vedder (a cover)
”A City’s Never” by Bullion, Panda Bear
”Alien Love Call” by Turnstile ft. Blood Orange

Thanks for reading!