RUTLAND,
Vt. — Block by block, this city in central Vermont has been fighting a
heroin epidemic so entrenched that it has confounded all efforts to
combat it.
On
Cottage Street, the foot traffic is heavy in and out of No. 24 ½, a red
two-story cottage set back from the street, where visitors stay less
than a minute.
“We
know what they’re doing in there,” Victoria DeLong, a longtime
neighbor, said of the house, which the police say is owned by an
absentee landlord and is a haven for drug dealers. “It’s like shopping
at the Grand Union,” Ms. DeLong said. “In and out, in and out.”
Long
visible at the street level in towns and cities across the country, the
extent of the opiate scourge in rural Vermont burst into the national
consciousness last month, when Gov. Peter Shumlin devoted his entire State of the State message to what he said was a “full-blown heroin crisis.” Much of New England is now also reporting record overdoses and deaths.
For some communities just starting to reckon with drugs, Mr. Shumlin’s words were a call to arms; for Rutland,
they offered a sense of solidarity as this city of 17,000 moves ahead
with efforts to help reclaim its neighborhoods and its young people, not
to mention its reputation.
Rutland
is a blue-collar town that rose to prominence in the mid-1800s with the
excavation of nearby marble quarries and the arrival of the railroad.
It stepped up its fight against heroin more than a year ago much the way
addicts do when they try to stop using — by finally admitting the
problem.
“There’s
probably not a person in Rutland County whose life has not been
affected by opiate addiction in one way or another,” said Jeffrey D.
McKee, director of psychiatric services at the Rutland Regional Medical
Center.
Since
acknowledging the problem, the police have come to view addiction as a
disease, not just a law enforcement issue, and have joined with social
service providers to take a more data-driven, coordinated approach to
homes with multiple problems. City agencies and residents have joined
forces to revitalize their neighborhoods and eliminate blight.
Mr.
Shumlin, a Democrat, has directed money to Rutland to help put in place
a rapid intervention program to divert certain drug abusers into
treatment instead of jail; if they complete the treatment, they will not
be prosecuted, giving them a better chance of finding a job.
And
the city has opened its first methadone clinic. Residents had opposed
one for years, but the need became too acute. Now, those needing this
form of treatment do not have to travel an hour away; the clinic, which
opened in November, expects to serve 400 people by the end of the year.
One
of the galvanizing events occurred in September 2012, when a man was
inhaling gas from an aerosol can while driving on city streets. The
police say he passed out with his foot on the accelerator and plowed
into a bank of parked cars at 80 miles an hour, killing Carly Ferro, 17, a high school student who was leaving work.
It
was a sign to many that the city had spun out of control. Rutland was
still mired in the recession, burglaries were up and residents had
little confidence in city institutions. The Police Department, for
example, faced allegations of officer misconduct, including watching pornography at work.
And drugs were everywhere.
“I
was shocked at the depth of addiction here,” said James W. Baker, a
former director of the Vermont State Police, who was brought in as
police chief in 2012 to overhaul the department. “We had open drug
markets going on in the street.”
And residents began to feel that the relaxed quality of life they cherished in Vermont was eroding.
“More
and more people’s homes were being broken into, and that raised the
alarm,” said Korrine Rodrigue, a public health researcher here.
It
became clear that the city could not arrest its way out of addiction
and that the police alone could not handle the multiple issues that were
arising from drug abuse. And so the police began meeting with social
workers, advocates for victims of domestic violence and child abuse,
building inspectors and others.
“You
can’t separate child abuse, domestic violence and opiate abuse because
in many situations, it all resides in the same house,” Chief Baker said.
“Now we’ll set up an intervention, not just wait for something to
happen.”
They
began mapping service calls to detect patterns. This led to the
identification of a 10-block target zone in the city’s Northwest sector
as its most critical “hot spot.” It receives 73 percent of all police
calls, Ms. Rodrigue said, and 80 percent of burglaries.
In this zone, troubled houses are interspersed with those that are better kept.
During
a stroll last week in the neighborhood, Sherri Durgin-Campbell, a
volunteer community mediator who owns a well-tended Victorian, pointed
out drug houses and also stately homes, including one for sale with a
wraparound porch and fancy kitchen.
“That
guy’s house has been on the market for over a year,” she said. “He was
originally asking $300,000 but he would gladly take $99,000.”
The
next day, the police conducted a drug raid on a nearby house, and a few
hours later it went up in flames; investigators said the cause was
arson but they have not determined the motive.
Many
believe that part of the drug problem lies in the high conversion rate
of single-family homes into multiunit rentals. The police say such units
can be breeding grounds for drugs because of a well-established
network, mostly of young women, who live in them and play host to
out-of-town dealers. The dealers can make quick money by buying heroin
in New York or Springfield, Mass., for as little as $6 a bag and selling
it here for $30. About $2 million in heroin is trafficked every week in
Vermont.
“If
you’re a guy from New York, you can come here with 500 bags of heroin,
sell it and sleep with three different women before you go home the next
day,” said Chief Baker. Many of the women, he said, receive rent
subsidies and food stamps and use heroin themselves. “The entire
infrastructure is here for these guys to function, make quick money and
leave,” he said.
To
help focus more attention on the drug problem, Rutland applied a year
ago for a $1 million federal grant from the Department of Justice, which
it did not get. But it used the application as a blueprint to organize a
communitywide coalition of concerned citizens and government agencies.
It calls itself Project Vision and it complements the work of the police
and social services.
The
project’s overarching goals are to revitalize the 10-block target area,
strengthen neighborhoods and reduce substance abuse. One of its first
steps was to hold a block party last fall near where Ms. Ferro was
killed.
“The
point was to say, ‘This is our community and we’re taking it back,’ ”
said Joseph Kraus, a former utility executive who is chairman of Project
Vision.
Last
week, after months of preliminary work, its members laid out specific
goals. The police want to cut residential burglaries in half by the end
of the year. Project Vision intends to reduce the number of blighted
homes in the target zone to 15 from 21 by rehabilitating or razing six
of them.
Two-thirds
of the homes in the target area are multiunit apartments; Project
Vision hopes to reduce that number to 50 percent within three years by
buying back properties, perhaps having nonprofit groups restore them and
resell them to owners who would live in them.
The
frenzy of activity has inspired people like Linda Justin to do outreach
on their own. Moved by what she said were “deteriorating” conditions,
Ms. Justin, 65, has wound down her real estate business, cashed in her
401(k) and “adopted” a square city block, where she has been meeting
residents every Sunday and “building relationships.” She offers to help
clean up houses and was preparing recently to connect a young heroin
addict she had met with the proper agencies for treatment.
Mayor Christopher Louras has been going door to door with work crews as they install brighter streetlights.
“A
byproduct of that outreach is to talk to neighbors and let them know
that we’re interested in their quality of life and giving them a greater
sense of security,” said the mayor, whose own nephew was arrested in
2012 on drug-related charges.
These
efforts are in their earliest stages, but burglaries and thefts in
Rutland were already down slightly in 2013 from 2012, according to
police figures, although drug offenses — and overdoses — were up.
Anecdotally, some business owners said they had seen little change, so far.
Paul
Ross, for one, who owns Ramunto’s Pizza Shop, said he still sees drug
deals “right in my parking lot.” And some residents of the target area
resent that so many people from outside the zone are making decisions
for their neighborhood.
Mr. Kraus, the Project Vision chairman, said the project was “a work in progress,” but he was positive about Rutland’s future.
“Nobody’s
proud that we find ourselves in this circumstance,” he said. “But we
confront our problems and deal with them.” He vowed improvements by this
time next year.
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