Philmont is moving towards the Master Plan

By JEANETTE WOLFBERG

HUDSON – Columbia County Human Services Director Dan Almasi presented four suggestions for using Opioid Settlement Funds at the Board of Supervisors Health and Human Services committee meeting October 17. These uses, based partly on community feedback, are: prevention services, a clearing house for all services and their providers, a flexible fund for emergencies, and Oxford Houses. The county might be able to have all of these simultaneously.

Columbia County is slated to receive $2.2 million in Opioid Settlement funds as a result of signing on to three lawsuits. So far the county has received about $500,000, and the rest is expected to dribble in by 2038, Mr. Almasi said on November 1.

In addition to the Opioid Settlement funds, the county has received $283,000 in Opioid Abatement funding for 2022-23. This, the County Supervisors have agreed to use for a Wellness Hub Coordinator, the Columbia Greene Addiction Coalition, a vehicle for ReEntry Columbia, and flexible funds for the Department of Human Services (see press release “Opioid settlement funds go a long way,” in the October 12 issue).

To determine how best to use the Opioid Settlement funds, the county has formed a committee of eight people, Mr. Almasi said. Earlier this year it held four community conversations around the county to see what people wanted.

Substance abuse prevention services are what people in the community conversations kept saying they wanted, Mr. Almasi reported at the October 17 meeting. Some schools already have prevention programs, he said, but people want them for adults and the community as well.

The Clearing House would provide one phone number for people to call to get connected to the right service. “We appreciate that” so many service providers and help organizations have hotlines and helplines, Mr. Almasi said. “But we’ve heard from everybody that in a crisis, people don’t know where to turn.” He suggested creating a work group to reach out to existing agencies and see what they can do together.

The emergency fund would have rapid access.

Oxford House is an international non-profit network of drug-free houses for people recovering from substance abuse. It rents single-family houses in “good neighborhoods,” for six to 15 people, some for men, one for women. Some accept children with a parent. The residents decide how to divide household chores and expenses among themselves. Mr. Almasi suggested considering establishing Oxford Houses for people when they get out of detoxification and rehabilitation from substance abuse.

For people recovering from substance abuse, Columbia and Greene counties have housing at the Red Door in Hudson for men and Riverside Recovery Residence in Catskill for women. But to go directly from rehabilitation to one’s original environment almost guarantees a relapse, Mr. Almasi said. An Oxford House would help the transition from halfway residence back to living in the outside world, he said. Oxford House’s website says, “Each Oxford House represents a remarkably effective and low cost method of preventing relapse.” The relapse rate, it says, does not exceed 20%.

Individuals can live in an Oxford House as long as they do not use drugs and do pay their share of household expenses, according to portal.CT.gov. “The average stay is a little over a year, but many residents stay” three or more years. “There is no pressure on anyone in good standing to leave.”

The first Oxford House was established in 1975 in a suburb of Washington, DC.

Now, according to Wikipedia, there are about 3,000 such houses, in several countries. There are several Oxford Houses in Orange County, as well as ones in Albany and Schenectady, the website says.