Community

Brandishing a stack of prescriptions, the man shouted that his wife was having an epileptic seizure in the waiting room. She needed her medication now, he declared in agitated Spanish.

Montenegro, a 63-year-old grandmother dressed in jeans and sneakers, walked over to the wife who was sitting quietly. The gaunt brunette nodded out in her chair.  "Excuse me, miss, what did you just take?" asked Montenegro, the executive director of United Bronx Parents that operates the clinic for uninsured clients.  

"Heroin and crack," said the woman, her dark eyes shadowed by deep circles. Montenegro told her that she had overdosed and offered to call an ambulance. The woman staggered outside for a cigarette with her husband and never returned. Montenegro glanced at their prescriptions. The names were whited out. All were for narcotic medications that provide a high similar to that of heroin.

Montenegro, a self-taught addiction specialist, was unruffled. "Desperate people will try anything," she said, and returned to her meeting.

Lorraine Montenegro is a pro at putting herself in other people's shoes—wannabe conmen, people with HIV, drug users— and then helping them into a more comfortable pair.

Her talents are partly inherited. Her late mother, Evelina López Antonetty, was a legendary community activist whose exploits were documented in the book "All For the Better," which is read by third graders in New York City public schools.

While no books have been written about Montenegro, she is a street celebrity. Those who need her help know where to find her, which suits her just fine. These days, a significant number of those people are drug users. The area where United Bronx Parents’ offices are located has a drug-related death rate that is twice the New York City average. Its HIV rate is the highest in the city.

Things have changed since the mother-daughter activist team founded United Bronx Parents together in 1966. Under Montenegro's leadership, the advocacy group has grown from a tiny storefront outfit into one of the South Bronx's largest non-profits, with an annual operating budget of $12 million and 200 employees. It has evolved from helping Puerto Rican parents advocate for better schools, to providing services for HIV positive and substance abusing clients.

"Lorraine is a pioneer in the world of HIV treatment," said Dennis Whalen, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, who has known Montenegro since the late '80s. "She is the perfect combination of passion, compassion and program smarts."

Montenegro is hands on; she shoos drug dealers off La Casa de Salud’s block with the line, “How many Latinos have you killed today?”

People close to Montenegro call her "a warrior," "an angel," "an inspiration." "If she has to spank you, she will spank you, but she will never abuse you," said Reynaldo Benitez, director of United Bronx Parents' Seniors' Drug Treatment Program. "She's the most caring, humanistic person I've ever known."

Montenegro begged to differ saying, "I'm a strong b----.” She has faced some of the same struggles as the people her organization serves. She raised five children by herself. She was once homeless. And her eldest son battled a 10-year heroin addiction.

Lorraine Montenegro was born and raised in the Bronx. Her father was a Cuban draftsman, and though she lived with her Puerto Rican activist mother after her parents divorced when she was 4, Montenegro remained close with him.

She has been married twice, the first time at 19, and she had her eldest son, Joe Conzo, at 20. When she was 23, she and her mother founded United Bronx Parents with their first grant of $23,000. "My playground was demonstrations at City Hall, and taking the bus to Washington to protest for the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners," said Conzo, now 43.

Working with her mom wasn't always easy. In 1967, Montenegro wound up homeless with Joe and her second son Eric, despite the fact that she was working for both United Bronx Parents and Abbot Fabrics, a Manhattan factory. "I wasn't making a lot of money, and I got behind in my rent," she said. "I got dispossessed and I stayed with friends. We stayed in my car at least a few nights. I was too proud to let my mother know."

Her mother eventually found out, and was incensed that she hadn't told her. Though Montenegro was lucky enough to get out of her predicament—a cousin took her family in until she got back on her feet—she has never forgotten it. "There but for the grace of God go I," is one of her favorite mottos.

After 13 years at United Bronx Parents, Montenegro left the organization and got her Masters in Human Services at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania while working at Lincoln Hospital. When her mother died after a short illness in 1984, Montenegro returned to head the organization. "Her body passed away but her spirit is still kicking my ass!" she said of her famous mother.

Montenegro continued her mother's day care and education programs, until she realized that drugs had become a scourge. She noticed that people were nodding out during the parents' training sessions. Then a young homeless woman told her that she could not get drug treatment because no program would take her kids. After the young mother left that night with a bagful of food, Montenegro started working to fill the void.

United Bronx Parents opened La Casita (the little house), a residential treatment program for homeless substance abusing women with their children in 1990. It caught the attention of many in the substance treatment field as well as funders, because it was the only program of its kind. Montenegro has always hoped that the woman who inspired it would one day come through La Casita’s doors, but she hasn't. Still, the program has produced many successes. One of its graduates is a top supervisor at United Bronx Parents.

Around the same time as she was opening La Casita, Montenegro was dealing with another substance abuse problem-her eldest son Joe's heroin addiction. "She gave me an ultimatum to be enrolled in rehab, and I hadn't done anything, so she kicked me out in the middle of a blizzard," said Conzo, who has been clean for 14 years. "If she hadn't done that, I would probably be dead today, but I finally got into rehab." Conzo is now a paramedic and a renowned photographer. "I learned about drug addiction from my son," said Montenegro. 

Her menthol cigarette habit, which she has tried to kick countless times, has also helped her relate to her clients. "I ripped the patches off of me because I was pissed off and wanted to punch somebody and knew I couldn't, so I smoked a cigarette," she said. "I smoke less in a calm environment. I'm assuming that with drugs it's the same thing. How the hell do you become drug free without a bed and three square meals?"

Many users have found that her philosophy works. Ogoby Ortiz, 47, arrived at La Casita Esperanza, a facility for HIV positive substance abusers, after a heroin overdose. He had been using off and on since he was 15.

"I've been clean for 10 months. Lorraine gave me a chance, she hired me," Ortiz said. "I'm still a client, but I'm also an outreach worker. I talk about safe sex and the virus."

Montenegro's track record has helped her raise funds. Ninety percent of the United Bronx Parents' budget comes from government sources. "She kind of acts as a person's conscience, which spurs people to deal with her requests," said Whalen, of the Department of Health.

Montenegro is more focused on their calculators than their consciences, however. "They can spend $34,000 a year to put someone in prison or $15,000 to give them to me," she said.

Montenegro started fighting the good fight with United Bronx Parents 40 years ago, and these days, she’s thinking about relaxing and finally writing a book.

But while she’s been visiting Puerto Rico a lot lately, she’s not thinking about settling down in paradise.

The mortality rate of people with HIV in Puerto Rico is almost 50 percent higher than in any U.S. state. The death rate among injection drug users in San Juan—where more services are available than in rural areas— is three times that of addicts in New York. So Montenegro has already scoped out a building, and will open a United Bronx Parents branch in Puerto Rico.

Retirement can wait.