C.A.R.E. Rochester, which stands for Community Action Resources Education, is a partnership between the Father Laurence Tracy Advocacy Center, Ibero-American Action League, and Trillium Health to address the opioid epidemic. One of the ways CARE is helping Rochester’s North Clinton neighborhood is by cleaning up discarded needles around the area.
For decades, Trillium Health has been distributing clean needles to addicted drug users since the height of the AIDS pandemic, as part of its outreach efforts. . Now, Infection rates are low but there’s a new problem -- used needles all over the neighborhood.
North Clinton resident Ida Perez says it wasn’t safe to take her grandchildren outdoors, so she started a block club with her neighbors to clean lots littered with dirty needles.
“One time we cleaned out alot with a group of volunteers, and we picked over 300 needles in one lot, said Perez. “We were flooded by the needles. It wasn’t safe for our kids.”
Perez says it’s important that agencies work directly with people living in the community because they know what the problems are.
“You can’t just come into a neighborhood and start doing things just because you have this great idea,” Perez said. “You really have to hear from the residents. You have to take into consideration and respect where they’re coming from and how they’re seeing things.”
Trillium listened and hired community health outreach & engagement specialists to help coordinate the cleanup. Residents can also visit
to schedule a syringe cleanup or get connected with other healthcare services.
Monroe County Legislator Vince Felder helped facilitate the collaboration between Trillium Health and the neighborhood residents. He says the real work is done by the people who live in the neighborhoods and credits Ida Perez for her persistence.
City councilmember Mike Patterson praised everyone for working together but was clear in emphasizing that the ultimate goal is to eliminate the open-air drug market.
"The goal is to get to a point where we aren’t distributing needles in the neighborhood and we are not finding them in the neighborhood,” Patterson said.That is the long term goal.”
