______________________________________						
						     )
Applications for License Renewal and for	     )
Termination of Voluntary Agreements between )		   		
and Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance,      )
Inc. and the following Licensees:		     )
						     )
Jaime T. Carrillo t/a Don Jaime’s Restaurant;     )		License No.  21915
						     )
NHV Corp. t/a Haydee’s Restaurant.		     )		License No.  24663
______________________________________ )

Statement of Najiya Shana'a
Hearing of February 13, 2008

My name is Najiya Shana’a and I have been a Mt Pleasant resident since 1991, and a home owner in the neighborhood since 1997. I live at ________ Street, about one block from Don Jaime’s and two or three blocks from Haydee’s Restaurant. I have raised my twelve year old daughter in Mt Pleasant and will continue to do so until she leaves home. I am also a licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and was the Executive Director of Neighbors’ Consejo for 8 years, from early 1998 to the end of 2005.

Neighbors’ Consejo was founded by a group of neighborhood residents to address the neighborhood problems of vagrancy, public intoxication, addictions and homelessness, and the impact that these problems had on the neighborhood as a whole. Anyone who has lived here as long as I have knows that at one time these problems were prevalent in our neighborhood – and that there has been a big change, and drastic improvement in these areas over the last ten years in Mt Pleasant. Moreover, it is important to note that these problems are not linked to the issue of music and social dancing in our neighborhood restaurants.

Neighbors Consejo’s primary focus from the beginning has been on the homeless and addicted, because we know that this is the unfortunate population that has chronically been associated with public intoxication, fighting, urinating in people’s back yards, sleeping under front porches, breaking into cars and panhandling on the streets. Consequently, in 1997 NC coordinated the collaboration between Martha’s Table and Sacred Heart Church to move the nightly food truck out of “Pigeon Park,” where it had attracted a permanent population of the homeless, traumatized and alcoholic, who took to living in the yards, porches and alleys of Mt Pleasant. The food service was moved from the park to the church, where other services could be coordinated, and almost instantly the problems in Mt Pleasant were drastically reduced. In 1998 NC started transitional housing for homeless men. In 2000 we initiated the first all day out- patient treatment program, and graduated about 50 adults each year. In 2004, we started the first in-patient addiction treatment program, which serves up to 20 adults in recovery at a time.

Neighbors Consejo had teams of outreach workers on the streets of Mt Pleasant every day establishing relationships and encouraging engagement in services. Our staff, which grew from 2 to 35 employees over a few short years, knew everyone on the streets - and everyone knew us. I can tell you that these are not people that are able to patronize business establishments such as Haydee’s or Don Jaime’ s. 1) They dont have the money to do so – and 2) they are not welcome as patrons there.

In fact, the businesses struggle to deal with these same issues just like everyone else. An early project of Neighbors Consejo included collaborating with local businesses, including Haydee’s and Don Jaime’s to help discourage panhandling, and to assist in referring patients to us. We would often get calls from business owners or managers asking for assistance in dealing with a panhandler at their entrance, an alcoholic in their parking lot or a mentally ill person with erratic behavior frightening their patrons. In essence, these businesses were critical referral sources that connected us to people in need of help.

These are the people that will continue to be in the streets until adequate services are provided to them that can assist them in changing their lives. And to the extent that these problems still do exist in our neighborhood, it is my opinion that they have nothing to do with these two restaurants, nor do I believe that the “voluntary agreements” that prohibit live music are the solution to the very complicated economic, social and cultural nature of these problems. They are simply two completely separate issues.

Although NC was a key player in the struggle against the neighborhood problems in Mt Pleasant for the last 12 years, NC was never consulted by the MPNA regarding best approaches to dealing with this very vulnerable population with multiple needs. When I eventually learned about the so-called “voluntary agreements” that banned live music in Mt Pleasant restaurants – I was completely perplexed. How is it that banning live music will help a man addicted to alcohol – a man that can’t even patronize the establishments – stop drinking, stop living on the streets and change his life for the better? I don’t see the connection, because there isn’t one. The restrictions in these agreements unjustifiably infringe the rights of the businesses, their patrons, and really of all the citizens; but they do absolutely nothing to address the problems of the neighborhood.