Dallas County commissioners recently awarded about $1 million each to four local opioid and substance use disorder care providers.
The grant money comes from the Texas opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma and other companies.
Nexus Recovery Center, Homeward Bound, Youth 180 and the county’s own MHMR provider, Metrocare Services, were among six vendors who submitted proposals.
Nexus serves women and their children. Its grant money will expand admissions and medication-assisted treatment at its new facility, which is scheduled for completion in April, Nexus President Heather Emmanuel Ormand said.
"Using these dollars to expand treatment and capacity is exactly what they were intended to use to get people help that are suffering from opiate use disorder," she said. "And there is hope. There are treatment options available. And so this bleak epidemic that has just ravaged the nation, there is a way out of it. And this will allow those women suffering from opiate use disorder to get the help that they need."
The state Health and Human Services Commission reports that 1 of every 4 Texans have or know someone who has experienced an opioid overdose.
Nationally, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported in 2022 that nearly 49 million people age 12 or older lived with an opioid or substance use disorder, but only 25 percent received treatment within the year.
SAMHSA said that in 2022 more than 59 million people age 18 or older had a mental illness.
In Dallas, Metrocare Services plans to use its county grant money expand its adolescent outpatient treatment.
Youth 180 hopes to expand recovery transition services and hire a full time Spanish and English-speaking care coordinator therapist.
Homeward Bound's proposal included extending its hours and days, telemedicine and Spanish services, and "Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT).
Ormand said that type of treatment eases withdrawal symptoms. It does not replace one substance use with another.
"You don't just wake up and try heroin," Ormand said. "It builds over time and people reach out for things in desperation when they're going through withdrawal. And there is a solution. That's what we want people to be focused on — that this is treatable."
Dallas County initiated the lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and others eight years ago.
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