U.S. Sen. Todd Young visited Columbus on Tuesday to learn how the Alliance for Substance Abuse Program in Bartholomew County might be replicated around the state.
Young, R-Ind., met with ASAP executive lead Jeff Jones and several members of the ASAP team, asking about ASAP’s organizational structure and how it is using community resources to tackle opioid abuse and addiction.
Young said there is a benefit to having a genuine, tightly knit community of caring and involved residents working together to help people fighting addiction.
ASAP formed through a partnership of Columbus and Bartholomew County governments and the local hospital system approaching the addiction problem with a broad community response, said Julie Abedian, vice president of Columbus Regional Hospital’s Community Partnerships and Corporate Responsibility, who leads ASAP’s treatment team.
That response has included the formation of ASAP and its 10 teams focusing on prevention, intervention, treatment, recovery programs, community programs and housing, an area that ASAP officials focused on during the meeting with Young.
ASAP hopes to create a hybrid model of best practices from the Hazelden Betty Ford Clinic in Minnesota and treatment program models used in West Virginia, a state hard-hit by opioid addiction, Abedian said.
So far, ASAP’s teams have identified 43 projects dealing with addiction and recovery, Jones said, and by May expect that half of them will be completed.
However, the housing issue — and its team, led by Ben Jackson, Columbus Township trustee — became a focus of the discussion as ASAP leaders emphasized to Young that finding housing for people recovering from addiction is an ongoing challenge in Columbus’ tight and expensive housing market.
Housing was shown as a major issue in a gap analysis of available services and community resources involved in treating addictions, along with the need for more facilities where individuals may detox as inpatients before moving into out-patient services and recovery. Jackson told Young that many people in recovery may have two or three evictions, or an arrest record, which puts them out of contention as a renter with most landlords.
Jackson explained that one major gap has been having housing available to people in recovery after they leave the Bartholomew County Jail, inpatient drug treatment or other recovery programs. Known as recovery housing, Jackson said the common name was often half-way houses, where people in recovery could live while they continued treatment and began putting their lives back together.
When the class of 18 women complete the Women Recovering with a Purpose program at the Bartholomew County Jail, one on average might have available safe housing upon her release, Jones said. Many who leave jail start their lives again in the same environment that led to their drug addiction, and finding safe housing becomes a key factor in their recovery, he said.
Jackson encouraged Young to consider looking at expansion of the Indiana Housing First program, which has provided grant money to Bartholomew County to help people in recovery find adequate and safe housing to continue their recovery. The funding is used locally to help pay deposits and guarantee rents for people who qualify for the program.
ASAP officials also asked Young to consider a funding model that could help communities sustain their treatment, recovery and prevention efforts, possibly unlocking money from federal programs to help communities, and possibly save money for the federal government down the road.
Young said he plans to investigate the type of technical resources that many communities in Indiana might lack to put together a program such as ASAP.
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The Alliance for Substance Abuse in Bartholomew County was launched in April 2017 to develop a communitywide response to the opioid crisis. The ASAP leadership team was established and Jeff Jones, a retired Cummins, Inc. executive, volunteered as ASAP executive lead. A group of local health care and criminal justice system executives agreed to a two-year commitment to lead action teams to identify the gaps in the substance abuse treatment system and to prioritize and implement solutions.
In October 2017, ASAP announced its strategy to address opioid addiction and substance abuse based on prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery.
To learn more, visit asapbc.org.
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