Mike Wolanin | The Republic An exterior view of the Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress Bartholomew County Hub in Columbus, Ind., Monday, June 15, 2020.
Local officials have started spending funding received through national opioid settlements to increase the number of recovery residences and prevention initiatives in the community.
As of last week, the county had disbursed $562,500 in settlement funds to help bankroll five local efforts to combat or prevent substance abuse in the community, according to figures provided by Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress Executive Director Sherri Jewett.
Launched in 2017, ASAP is a community-wide response to address substance use disorder, including the opioid crisis, in Bartholomew County. ASAP was formed through a partnership between Columbus and Bartholomew County governments and Columbus Regional Health.
About 91% of the local funds disbursed so far are for projects seeking to expand recovery housing in Bartholomew County, according to an analysis of the spending.
Local non-profit Bridge to Dove has received $300,000 in settlement funds to help with the costs of building a 6,500-square-foot recovery home for up to 15 women in Columbus.
In addition, Ascension has received $160,000 to help fund start-up costs for three recovery residences for men in the community. Thrive Alliance has received $50,000 to purchase a residence that will be leased to Centerstone to operate a recovery house for men.
Foundation for Youth also received $45,000 in settlement funds for youth prevention initiatives, and Transformational Living Ministries received $7,500 for assessments for their recovery residence participants.
In addition, Bridge to Dove received an additional $300,000 and Thrive Alliance received an additional $250,000 from the state’s allotment of settlement funds to help offset start-up costs for their projects in Bartholomew County. The additional funds were awarded through the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction.
Bridge to Dove
Local officials have described the settlement funds as an opportunity to take “a horrible situation across our nation and turn it into an opportunity to make things better for people.”
Mark Teike, chairman of the board for local non-profit Bridge to Dove, said the $300,000 in local opioid settlement funds “will go a long way in the construction process, and we’re very excited about that.”
The non-profit is hoping to bring a Dove recovery house for women to Bartholomew County. Based in Indianapolis, the Dove Recovery House for Women would handle funding for programming, staffing and operations indefinitely after construction is complete.
Teike said Dove provides a low cost/no cost recovery options for women, with a location in Indianapolis and satellite location in Jasper.
The 6,500-square-foot facility in Columbus will be constructed on a 1.4-acre vacant lot near Centerstone’s location on North Marr Road that was gifted to the nonprofit. Teike estimated that the total construction costs will total around $2.5 million including furnishings and three months of operating costs.
“We hope to be able to break ground … sometime around the first of the year,” Teike said. “…We’re hoping that about a year after we break ground … late winter, early spring of 2026, that (the) Dove (house) will be able to open their doors.”
Nationwide settlements
The disbursements are part of nationwide settlements with a major pharmaceutical manufacturer and the nation’s three largest drug distributors over their role in the opioid addiction crisis.
In 2022, the Indiana Attorney General’s Office announced that local governments in Bartholomew County would collectively receive an estimated $3.2 million as part of part of the settlements with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three distributors.
The amounts, which will be paid out in annual installments of varying amounts through 2038, include an estimated $3 million for Bartholomew County, $194,011 for the city of Columbus and $9,343 for the town of Hope.
Of the total amount, $2.1 million of the county’s share, as well as $135,808 of the Columbus’ allotment and $6,540 of Hope’s funds, must be used for drug abatement efforts. The rest of money — roughly $901,715 for the county, $58,203 for Columbus and $2,803 for Hope — does not have any restrictions on its use, the attorney general’s office said.
Bartholomew County’s first payment was expected to include $442,616 in drug abatement funds and an additional $189,693 unrestricted funds, state records show. Columbus’ initial check will include $28,570 in abatement funds and $12,244 without any restrictions. Hope will get about $1,376 in abatement funds and $590 in unrestricted money.
As more rounds of funding come in in the coming years, the local Substance Abuse Accountability and Advisory Committee is hoping to set up a process for requesting funds, Jewett said. Multiple lawsuits that could result in more opioid settlement funds heading to Bartholomew County and elsewhere are still pending, she said.
“The Substance Abuse Accountability and Advisory Committee has approved a recommended process to be presented to (the Bartholomew) County Council that will provide opportunities for requesting opioid settlement funds in the future,” Jewett said. “I will be presenting this recommendation to (the) county council at the August meeting.”
Opioid crisis
The settlements seek to hold companies liable for an epidemic that has been linked to the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.
The nation’s opioid crisis began more than 20 years, starting with the overprescribing of prescription pain relievers such as oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Locally, medical providers in Bartholomew County prescribed opioids at approximately 1.4 to 1.8 times the national average from 2006 to 2017, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As a result, Bartholomew County pharmacies were flooded with millions of prescription opioid pills from 2006 to 2012, including two pharmacies in Columbus — located a mere 450 feet from each other — whose inventories of oxycodone and hydrocodone were among the five largest in the state, The Republic previously reported.
Records from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration show that just more than 36 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills were shipped to pharmacies in Bartholomew County from 2006 to 2012 — enough for every resident in the county to receive 68 pills each year.
But once prescription painkillers became harder to get, some people started turning to heroin. The crisis later evolved from heroin to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that more potent than heroin but cheaper to produce.
Fentanyl was developed to treat intense pain from ailments such as cancer but has increasingly been mixed with other drugs in the illicit drug supply, including counterfeit pills.
Local officials say the dangerously powerful opioid is a major contributor to a historic rise in overdose deaths in Bartholomew County over the past few years.
In 2022, a record 39 people died from overdoses in Bartholomew County, according to the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office. By comparison, there were six fatal overdoses in the county in 2015.
Since Jan. 1, 2015, at least 228 people have died from overdoses in Bartholomew County according to county records that were current as of last month. Many of those deaths involved opioids, though local officials say most fatal overdose involved multiple substances.
