By Eric Coleman
What is floating just below the surface of the flooding disaster on the North End of Hartford is the erosion of the long-term health of Black people. It seems nearly impossible to talk about the North-End of Hartford without talking about the flooding; and “flooding” is a somewhat sanitized way to describe what is actually happening to our people. This is sewage. It’s filth and garbage and in its wake, there is feces encrusted mildew and mold. This mold and mildew invade our home and in their wake our families inhale life-threatening spores. Even more fundamental than losing our family heirlooms, precious memories and awards; the unsteady grasp on our own generational health compounds the loss of our generational wealth. Indeed, the CDC1 informs us that the inhalation of mold and mildew spores can cause people of all ages to develop asthma symptoms and mold allergies. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health tells us that Non-Hispanic African Americans are 30% more likely to have Asthma than non-Hispanic Whites. Furthermore, this same research informs us those non-Hispanic Black children are 4.5 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital for asthma and 7.6 times more likely to die from asthma-related symptoms.
Generational health is a term that carries with it enormous consequences when growing up in a family living 200% under the poverty line and close to 20% of the year underwater. For context, 20% of the year is about 73 days. Generational health is a concept that resonates in the Black community as the hidden fear lurking in the deep. That somehow growing up drinking lead-laced water in a place like Flint Michigan (41% below the poverty line and 57% Black2) or breathing in harmful mold spores right here on the North End of Hartford will ultimately result in a cancer diagnosis, harsh asthma symptoms and allergies, heart disease, learning disorders, developmental delays for our children. No matter what high-fashioned degree we hold or what ivy league institutions we may attend, all our scrapping, saving and hard work attempting to pull ourselves out of generational poverty will be upended, and our lives cut short because we ran through the sprinklers when we were kids growing up on Granby Street.
There is a part of me that wishes we had an election every year if it meant that our communities would get the attention they deserve. When Nikeda Parkes bought her home on Granby Street she said she had no idea that she was inheriting this massive flooding problem. She had no idea that she would have to spray harmful chemicals in her home just to stop bugs and other insects from invading her children’s bedrooms from the septic bog that had pooled in her yard. Businesses are closing on the North-End due to the flooding and jobs are being lost in our neighborhoods. Max Kothari’s appliance and hardware stores employed good hardworking people, however, no more. At any time over the last 8 years, we could have taken that 90 million dollars we used to build a baseball stadium and used it to instead fix this ecological and public health disaster in the North End of Hartford. However, I fear that Governor Lamont was correct when he said that if this flooding had happened in Greenwich, it would have been fixed almost immediately. While I am not sure how many people such as Nikeda Parkes could afford to live in Greenwich, at no time should a high socioeconomic class be a prerequisite for clean drinking water, quality education, safe streets, or clean air. More than big lights and luxury apartments, Hartford needs neighborhoods to be strong again.
When I arrived in Hartford in 1974 as UCONN Law student, things were different. The cars weren’t quite as high-tech, but we parked them in front of local grocery stores and family-owned businesses. We went shopping at Sage Allen downtown and enjoyed the privilege of being the Capital city bursting with life courtesy of our nearly 180,000-person population. As we sit here today in 2023 having lost over 30% of our population, I want to be the mayor who starts paying more attention to Hartford families and neighborhoods which feed our downtown businesses.
Giving corporations tax breaks and hoping that they will attract people to come live in Hartford is a sadly misguided strategy when observing the lives of the people such as Ms. Parkes on Granby Street. As your Mayor, I will focus on helping Ms. Parkes and thousands of others like her, whose generational health and well-being need to come first. I ask earnestly for your vote on September 12th and please bring as many friends and family as you can in support of this neighborhood and family-based movement. Our generational health, as well as the vitality of our beloved capital city, is at stake.
