San Bernardino County board OKs funds to combat opioid crisis, homelessness

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday revised a $23.5 million plan to address opioid addiction and accepted more than $500,000 for homelessness reduction efforts.

San Bernardino County has been a party to a number of legal settlements against pharmaceutical companies for their role in enabling the nationwide opioid crisis. The county has secured more than $13 million from lawsuit settlements and expects more funding to address the addiction epidemic over an 18-year period.

On Tuesday, supervisors revised the $23.5 million County Opioid Settlement Funding Expenditure Plan that supervisors approved last year. The plan funds substance addiction programs implemented by the county’s Behavioral Health and Public Health departments.

Board-approved initiatives include:

• “Addressing substance use problems among youth involved in the child welfare system by expanding screening, substance use treatment and care coordination. An estimated 120 youth are anticipated to be served, resulting in increased education, recovery, permanency and lifetime abstinence.
• “Providing substance use outpatient services at several County Probation Day Reporting Centers for approximately 200 clients.
• “Expanding existing county outreach efforts by increasing access to naloxone and providing education to adolescents, parents and community members.
• “Fostering collaboration between community-based organizations, school districts, healthcare providers and individuals with lived experience to expand current overdose prevention strategies.
• “Funding the renovation of a facility in Victorville that provides withdrawal management and residential treatment services to residents countywide. This is a 60-bed facility that has a capacity to serve 960 individuals annually.
• “Increasing awareness and education regarding the dangers of opioid use,” according to the county.

Homelessness grant

Officials estimated 300 county residents at risk of homelessness will benefit from a $526,611 federal grant that the Board of Supervisors accepted Tuesday.

The money, which was received via the state, is from the program known as the Federal McKinney Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness. The program offers services to people who have a serious mental illness, simultaneously struggle with a serious mental illness and substance use disorders such as opioid addiction and/or are experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of becoming unhoused.

The Behavioral Health Department “will use the funding to provide targeted outreach, planning and coordination for housing services, linkage to behavioral health services including medication support, job training, education services and case management services to an estimated 300 clients at an annual estimated program cost of $2,340 per individual,” according to the county.