In late August, a man was found unresponsive in his car outside the west side location of the Chicago Recovery Alliance, a local overdose prevention and harm reduction group, according to former employee Nikki Carter.
Wilson, however, told the Reader in December through an attorney that she was “proud of how everyone on the team handled the situation in the neighborhood,” and said that the window was not broken out of fear the car would later be vandalized.
CRA bills itself as the nation’s first and largest naloxone distribution program in the country. The organization also hands out safe snorting and injection materials, and provides harm reduction counseling and overdose training, as well as referrals to drug treatment. The tragic, perhaps avoidable, death signals deeper issues at the organization. Over the course of reporting this story, I heard stories alleging racism, dysfunction, and a general lack of leadership from management. The disorganization and in-fighting at CRA threatens not only the organization but, most importantly, the vulnerable people it serves.
“There has been a lot of racial division within CRA for a very long time,” Wilson said. “The narrative I was told when I first got here was the south side is dirty and lazy. And that is the opposite of what I’ve seen.”
Wilson said she filed a grievance to the CRA board a little over a week before she was fired. But the grievance itself, which she provided to the Reader, is a confusing and hard-to-follow screed. “I’m quite tired of being found guilty by the board before given my legal right to a voice, process or even a meeting,” Wilson wrote at the end of the grievance. “If needed I will acquire an employment attorney if that is the only way I am allowed rights in this organization.”
As for her ousting, Wilson said it was the product of a coordinated, surreptitious effort by the board. Ernst, however, said she received four formal grievances against Wilson over the course of her short tenure at CRA, as well as two informal grievances from people fearing reprisal for their complaints. Ernst did not elaborate on what those grievances were, but added that many of the people reporting grievances were people of color or LGBTQ+ people.
