The meeting was led by Jennifer Rigby, the chief strategy officer for New Hanover County, who reported that the county has been experiencing a downward shift in opioid-related deaths.
Rigby said since implementing the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Strategic Plan that was adopted by the Board of Commissioners in 2022, the number of opioid-related fatalities went down from 9 deaths a month to six deaths a month. She said there is “still a ways to go, but we're trending in the right direction.”
According to Rigby, much of this is due to the wraparound services that providers can expand on thanks in part to the over $18.4 million settlement money the county is receiving from the National Opioid Settlement over the next 18 years, along with the $50 million from the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Fund. The latter was part of the sale proceeds from New Hanover County Regional Medical Center, set aside in a restricted-use fund.
The settlement fund is a result of a series of nationwide litigation against pharmaceutical companies and distributors. Governor Josh Stein, then North Carolina Attorney General, helped reach the settlements with opioid drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen – to name a few.
The $18 million from the settlement fund was front-loaded in fiscal year 2024 with over $5 million distributed in the second wave. The county expects this amount to increase after the lawsuit with Purdue Pharma is finalized.
In January, providers shared the success of their programs and discussed their future plans with the funding at the Collaborative Opioid and Mental Health Planning and Strategy Sessions (C.O.M.P.A.S.S).
There are 9 providers total, including the Sheriff’s Office, Wilmington Police Department, New Hanover County Health and Human Services Street Outreach, Coastal Horizons Center, The Healing Place and Tides, Inc.
Over $3 million was parceled out amongst the providers to fund, and in some cases, expand a total of 15 programs being provided to the community.
The programs include:
- Tides’ Graduates Rent Assistance initiative which helps graduates of their program transition from recovery housing to their own private housing by subsidizing up to 30% of their rent for at least one year. The program, which is tailored to help pregnant women and mothers, is set to receive $445,000.
- MedNorth Health Center’s Low Barrier MOUD Program, which offers education and outreach about wraparound services for patients, will expand their program with $272,929 for the upcoming year.
- OpiAID, a company that partners with Coastal Horizons Center, plans to provide 300 wearable devices to help clinicians personalize the treatment of OUD. In the upcoming year, their program will receive $250,000.
- The Healing Place whose programs range from detox to long-term residential treatment, will receive about $1.3 million for operational costs.
Coastal Horizons Center has four programs that were approved for funding, one includes their partnership with OpiAID.
The center also partners with the Sheriff’s Office for a Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) program at the New Hanover County Detention Center, which is set to receive $286,885. The program provides medication for those who are detained at the facility being treated for OUD.
“We were seeing people who increase their risk of overdose going through withdrawals in the jail,” said Jason Black, Coastal Horizons’ director of adult and community residential treatment. “When they leave, they've been in jail for whatever period of time, and if they relapse using the same amount [of substance] that results in an overdose, most likely, because their tolerance is reduced during that time.”
He added that, “dosing in the jail has allowed us to start people who are going through opiate withdrawal on medication assisted treatment, or allow those people that are on medication assisted treatment to continue to get their recommended medication while they're incarcerated.”
Black said this continuum of support for OUD stemming from the settlement fund, the community, and officials has helped destigmatize an issue that many in our community face.
“Years ago, when you would talk about somebody in an opiate addiction, someone would think about somebody who wasn't working, who wasn't willing to work, who was meeting all of these stereotypes. What this declaration of epidemic has allowed us to do is recognize that somebody with opioid use disorder could be a congressman, could be the child of a billionaire, could be somebody who you know is on subsidized housing or subsidized school lunches. There isn't a demographic for addiction, and this has allowed us as clinicians and service providers to navigate the landscape and get more support in general,” Black said.
New Hanover County Chairman Bill Rivenbark, Commissioner Dane Scalise and City Councilmember Luke Waddell were in attendance to vote on the recommended budget allocations.
The three officials voted unanimously to approve the budget plans, with an additional allocation of $10,000 to go towards training for city and county law enforcement in opioid death investigations.
Scalise voiced the most outward support at the meeting.
“One of the very nice things about having these resources is that we're able to take a multi-prong approach and to attack this very important issue from a lot of different angles,” he said. “In a lot of different ways. Some of the methodologies that we may be utilizing perhaps are more experimental or less proven, but you won't know until you give them a shot, and whenever we have funds available to do exactly that, I think it's a very good thing that we're trying to address this issue in so many different ways.”
The county’s outreach coordinator, Alex Riley, also wrote to WHQR stating that, “The opioid crisis has had a profound impact on our community, contributing to significant overdose deaths and economic challenges. These funds are critical in expanding treatment, recovery, and prevention services. By leveraging the settlement dollars, along with additional local and state funds, New Hanover County and the City of Wilmington are investing in long-term strategies to address opioid misuse, enhance mental health services, and support recovery efforts throughout the community.”
Riley said officials are currently working through the budget for FY 25-26. The Commissioners’ upcoming budget work sessions will take place on March 6, March 20, and April 21.
COMPASS 01-17-25 Partner Presentations by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
