A situation in Bridgeport is illuminating how the effects of drug addiction touch more people in a community than only those who are using. One church is calling out for help after finding hundreds of needles and other items for drug use on its grounds.
“That’s what heroin or fentanyl comes in,” Liberation Programs recovery coach and outreach specialist Michelle Marano said while using a tool to pick a small piece of wax paper off the ground.
Marano is sadly familiar with the items used to take drugs. Just two years ago, she suffered a nearly deadly overdose.
“I could say my mental health was pretty bad most of my life, and I just didn't care anymore,” Marano said.
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Now a recovery coach with Liberation Programs, a nonprofit that provides resources for substance misuse treatment, she is regularly at a Bridgeport church on Brooks Street.
She hopes through Liberation Programs to reach anyone using drugs at the church who may need help.
"I hope that they just, that we're able to connect with them and give them resources and services if they choose to accept them," Marano said. "We just want to connect with them."
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Marano is one of many joining Shekinah Glory Free Methodist Tabernacle Pastor Eddy Michael to clean up drug paraphernalia left on the property.
“We found probably 120 to 150 syringes right here,” Pastor Michael said.
The churchyard is meant to be a space of reflection and community.
Instead, the pastor describes how despite multiple cleanups each week, he finds storage spaces trashed, bags used to stuff drugs and syringes, needles and even drugs hidden in holes and other places on the property.
“They will pack everything right here,” he said, pointing to a small hole in the side of the church.
He also unexpectedly finds trespassers on the property, both day and night.
“They come with a bucket of water, and you see them remove their clothes and take a shower right here,” Pastor Michael says.
With a congregation of 300 mostly Haitian-Americans, and 10 families living in the rectory adjoined to the church, Pastor Michael says the situation poses risks, especially to children.
“It is a safety concern because we have kids that living in this building,” he said, pointing to the rectory. “They cannot play in this building. We cannot even have a barbecue because we don't know what is in there.”
It is a safety risk the congregation has now brought up during three meetings with Bridgeport City Councilwoman Maria Valle. During those meetings, leaders discussed how one 4-year-old child living in the neighborhood was thankfully unharmed after she accidentally poked herself with a needle at the church.
“It’s serious because we do have a family shelter across the street. We have children that walk to and from school,” Councilwoman Valle said.
Valle says she is in touch with public facilities about cutting back on vegetation where needles could get lost, and police are increasing patrols in the area.
She, along with Pastor Michael, says more social services are also needed.
"Addiction will impact anybody. It doesn't discriminate," Benjamin Kovalsky, Liberations Program Outreach Specialist and Overdose Responder, said.
The situation has prompted Liberation Programs to connect with the church, offering cleanup assistance and meeting people where they are.
"Four people a day die of drug overdoses in the state of Connecticut. So one of the big pieces of the message that we're trying to also support people with is, how can we reach them before they die?" Liz Evans, Liberations Program Senior Director of Harm Reduction, said.
The goal: to turn lives around.
"I wouldn't be where I am today without that help that I got. I don't even think I'd be alive right now," Marano said.
That is the key to Pastor Michael, who says the solution is not about simply removing people from the property, but addressing the needs of people in the church's orbit, like Terry Felder.
Felder is homeless in Bridgeport, and says he fell back into using drugs after his wife passed away two years ago.
"I struggle with addiction now, it's not easy trying to overcome it," Felder said.
Despite that battle, Felder says he also helps clean up drug-use items littered around the churchyard, hoping to prevent the next generation from calling into a a cycle of addiction.
“I don't want it to affect the next generation,” Felder said. “That they don't go through what I went through, you know, that they have a better chance at life than I did.”
The church, a sanctuary. Yet Pastor Michael says its resources are limited.
“It’s not only Terry,” he said. “We have probably 20 to 30 people, just knock on my door and say, ‘Pastor, what can you do for us?’”
