Nine groups were recently awarded grant money to strengthen their efforts to address substance abuse in the region.
The money trickled down from nationwide Opioid Settlement Funds.
For 18 years, Colorado is expected to receive $467 million as different companies responsible for distributing astronomical amounts of opioids pay for their contribution to the prescription opioid epidemic, which resulted in more than 210,000 overdose deaths in 14 years.
In Montezuma County, prescription pills were distributed at a rate of 37.7 per person every year, according to data compiled by the Washington Post.
So far, we’re two years into the 18, and our region has received $1.5 million in settlement money.
The Southwest Opioid Response District is Southwest Colorado’s council for deploying the funds. They represent five counties: Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma, San Juan.
“In our region, all our governments decided to pool it (the money) because they felt they could have a bigger impact by putting the funds towards a larger, more impactful project or set of projects,” said Heather Otter, the economic development project manager at Region 9.
To decide how to best spend this money, Region 9 conducted a study with an intent to understand the area’s needs and what solutions are most sustainable.
“We are missing an inpatient treatment center here in Southwest Colorado – we do not have it, and we have to send people out of our communities when that’s the care they need,” Otter said.
The closest facility is on the front range, which, of course, is less than ideal. But as Region 9 looked at the feasibility of building one here, it started to look extremely expensive and difficult to staff. In effect, it wasn’t a sustainable solution, Otter said.
“So the attention shifted to what it would look like to build what we are calling a recovery ready region,” Otter said.
How can we make an impact on people along the continuum of recovery from substance use disorder? And have open doors to them at whatever stage they are in?
“We already have a lot of good work being done in this field,” Otter said.
So SWORD decided to support this work by divvying up $438,356 of the initial $1.5 million between nine groups: Manna, the Indigenous Wellbriety Program, Inner Peace Yoga Therapy, La Plata Youth Services, Montezuma County Community Intervention Program, San Juan County Public Health, Southwest Colorado Community Corrections Center (Hilltop), United Way of Southwest Colorado, and Upper Pine Fire District.
“The goal was again to enrich the soil for this recovery ready region,” Otter said.
Indigenous Wellbriety, one of the groups awarded funds, will hire two staff with the money – program coordinator and a peer recovery coach for youths – said the program’s Director Imo Succo.
“I shed tears,” said Succo, about being awarded the money. “I love writing … when I write a grant, I put my all into it.”
Succo said the program is modeling a healing forest, a Wellbriety term, which spreads healing education to families and the community.
It’s Native American led, and the work they do provides spiritual and cultural peer support to the individual. It’s very much community- and family-oriented because those are often ties that are damaged or outright broken when one uses substances.
Those ties are also the crucial, supportive ones in any recovery.
Indigenous Wellbriety holds Talking Circles, provides one-on-one peer coaching, and a mobile clinic that offers food and other assistance – physical exams, treatments – to unhoused relatives every Tuesday in Cortez. That program is a street outreach collaboration with Sih Hasin Street Medicine.
Inner Peace Yoga Therapy also was awarded grant money.
“I think it’s great the grant was inclusive of services that could help people in recovery that are nontraditional. Things like yoga, for example,” said Michele Lawrence.
With the money, they will offer group yoga classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting in October. One will be focused on pain care and offering non-pharmacological solutions through yoga. The other will be focused on recovery and supporting their journey with a consistent mind-body routine, Lawrence said.
People will be able to take the classes for free, but preregistration is required online.
Supporting these groups was something achievable now. Looking long-term, the goal is to build a residential recovery campus in Cortez or Durango.
“It’s essentially a peer-led residential recovery campus for adults that are seeking help with recovery from substance use disorder,” Otter said. “It utilizes a permanent supportive housing system.”
It’s based on a similar program called Recovery Kentucky, which targets substance abuse as it pertains to homelessness in the bluegrass state.
Though the one here won’t be exactly that, it’ll be inspired by it because there’s data showing effectiveness of their model, Otter said.
The campus will, first and foremost, offer supportive housing.
“When people have a roof over their head, many of the other essential and basic things in life fall into place a little bit easier,” she said.
There are multiple stages to recovery. The program and residence itself are there to provide structure and support to people looking for it, Otter said.
Once the campus is complete in three or four years, it’ll be able to house about 100 residents.
“We are under no pretense that even these solutions, with the community grants and the recovery residence, are enough. It’s hard to say what is enough. I mean, could we ever do enough, given the losses that people have already suffered? I don’t know,” Otter said. “But the council took a lot of care and time in making the decision.”
The Southwest region is expected to receive a total of $7.5 million in the 18-year window, a figure that will likely change as different companies settle for different amounts, at different times.
“When you think of it in the long term, that’s not a ton of money, really, if you’re thinking of the big picture here: abating the opioid crisis. But, again, we all know that, and we know we have to leverage other funding.”
Moving forward, SWORD will get to decide where to put new money- towards its current projects, or to new ones. Some money will always go to the residential recovery campus, Otter said.
“We can look back and we can hash over all the things that don’t work or haven’t worked or that we don’t have, but this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to have some funding. It’s not going to be enough to take care of it all, but it’s some funding to focus on solutions.”
