Groups primed to put opioid settlement money in action
By Cameron Montemayor
Zachary Fetty will look back on a series of events in September 2023 as a turning point for the rest of his life. The Marine Corps veteran first found himself lying in a hospital bed after realizing he had just undergone lifesaving surgery.
Fetty, a 48-year-old St. Joseph native, has spent the better part of the last seven years homeless. He’s had friends succumb to drug addiction or substance abuse and seen firsthand the devastating mark it can leave on people and communities, from St. Joseph to Denver and Seattle.
“It’s so incredibly difficult, especially when you lived on the streets … just to see an end in sight … to try to structure a way to come out of the gutter,” the Central High School grad said. “It’s an incredibly lonely road.”
Fetty ended up in the hospital last September after he was attacked outside the Woods Mini Mart late one night. The brutal attack left him with a broken nose and a ruptured spleen that caused internal bleeding. He ended up passing out due to his injuries the next day while staying at a shelter and was rushed in for emergency surgery.
When he woke up in a Mosaic hospital bed after the successful procedure, he was shocked by what he saw in his room. Several women who worked at the shelter and the local nonprofit Community Missions were there to greet him and give him an opportunity.
“These guys had come up to see me, the staff … they had told me that I had a bed here at the Haven House when I got out,” he said. “They gave me, well, a haven.”
Prior to the attack, Fetty had put in an application hoping to be accepted for residency at the house. It’s one of three Community Missions buildings that gives chronically homeless men stable housing to help address issues that have led to their situation, such as drug addiction, mental health and other issues.
This upcoming May will mark a significant milestone in his life as Fetty will celebrate two years of being drug-free after a long battle with addiction the last 10 years. As he continues to make strides, he often thinks of his two daughters and the motivation they had on his life turnaround.
“Thank God for these guys. A place like this is a sanctuary,” he said. “Sober support … here I came, here I healed.”
He said he owes much of his newfound life now to Community Missions and the foundation they’ve provided to get him back on his feet over the last seven months. His next goal is to land a job and continue his road back to stable housing and a normal life.
Community Missions, along with seven other organizations and agencies, became the first groups selected in March to receive the first part of funding from a landmark opioid settlement.
Approval by the city council and county commissioners — likely in April — is the final domino that will set the work in motion.
For Community Missions and its residents, an infusion of settlement funding will provide a significant boost by allowing them to hire a new aftercare specialist. The position will help the most at-risk individuals successfully transition back to permanent housing.
“What we have seen over and over again is that we get someone in housing, but then they’re not continuing to address some of the behaviors that brought them to homelessness in the first place,” Community Missions Director Rachael Bittiker said.
Similar to a case manager, the specialist will follow up to ensure people are finding resources, and when needed, utilizing substance abuse or mental health treatment programs that will boost the chances for lasting success in their transition.
“It makes a difference when you have somebody in your corner that’s rooting for you and is trying to do everything possible to see you succeed,” Bittiker said. “If we can, you know, save the life of one person and change one person’s life around, we’re here for it.”
A long time coming for communities
Between 2016 and 2023, 170 people in the county died of an overdose; 111 of those involved an opioid, according to the county medical examiner’s office. The decadeslong crisis has taken an added toll on countless other people and families.
After three decades that saw more than half a million people in the U.S. die as a result of opioids, a massive $26 billion settlement was announced in 2021 with four drug companies: McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and Johnson & Johnson, to resolve thousands of lawsuits for claims they helped fuel the opioid crisis.
Close to 150 cities and counties in Missouri, including St. Joseph and Buchanan County, joined the settlement. Of the $458 million that went to the state, more than $2 million was distributed to St. Joseph and Buchanan County. Approximately $156,000 is available in funding cycles annually, $104,000 for the city and $52,000 for the county.
Groups selected to receive funds in 2024:
- Buchanan County EMS: $13,500
- St. Joseph Metro Treatment Center: $5,000
- Mission House Covenant Community: $1,150
- The Samaritan Counseling Center: $41,450
- St. Joseph Youth Alliance: $10,000
- St. Joseph Museums: $3,000
- Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office: $7,450
- Community Missions: $45,000
The city and county agreement for funding uses prioritizes three key areas: treatment, education and prevention of opioid and substance abuse to help make the widest impact.
Now, group leaders are eager to see the funds be put into action to help people in the community in a variety of ways.
The Samaritan Counseling Center has helped St. Joseph since 1986 with a wide range of mental health services and health care experts. The nonprofit plans to use funding to bring on a new peer-support specialist to their team. The position would fill a vital service gap by helping patients stay on track with their treatment and recovery at the center and at home.
“If you have someone that’s neutral and you’ve built a rapport with them and they can call you out on stuff that you aren’t being honest with, or they can praise you for the successes that you’ve had, that’s important,” said Christine Feuerbacher, director of development with Samaritan.
Samaritan Counseling Center can see 130 patients over the course of a month, but Feuerbacher said it’s just a small portion of those impacted they’re trying to reach throughout the community.
“In order to be better, you have to make sure that you fill the gaps and you keep going in the direction of a complete and better program,” Feuerbacher said. “To make the community feel like we are really behind them.”
For those undergoing drug treatment, transportation is often a significant barrier that prevents many people in St. Joseph from accessing services on a consistent basis.
The St. Joseph Metro Treatment Center wants to make sure patients have just that with its share of funding, which will help pay for pre-paid bus passes to get patients there. In addition to a variety of treatment services, the center also offers one-on-one, group and family counseling services.
For law enforcement, the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office and Drug Strike Force applied for a one-time funding request to boost maintenance for its mass spectrometer, an advanced device that analyzes and accurately identifies compounds in substances and drug samples.
The spectrometer has significantly boosted their ability to analyze drug samples efficiently and safely since purchasing it a year and a half ago.
“Whereas it may have taken weeks or months sometimes to get a lab result before, with this device, we can get results in just a few minutes,” Drug Strike Force Capt. Shawn Collie said.
The device is crucial for them at a time when more drugs like fentanyl are being confiscated in the county than ever. The Drug Strike Force seized more than five times the amount of fentanyl in 2023 (5,245 grams) than it did in 2022 (978 grams).
“The testing of the fentanyls and the opioids, because of the binders and other stuff, they basically clog the machine up,” Collie said.
Fellow county agency Buchanan County EMS is primed to enhance its educational programming on Narcan and illicit drugs with the help of settlement funding.
Located in St. Joseph’s South Side, Mission House Covenant Community offers a valuable service by helping provide shelter, food and other basic necessities to those struggling. Funding for the growing religious organization will help furnish its new housing duplex with beds, furniture and other kitchen items.
St. Joseph Youth Alliance intends to use funding for substance use prevention kits and other resources for its programs that keep kids from harmful activity.
In just the last year and a half, more than 2,000 people, from youth at the St. Joseph School District to adults in drug recovery programs, have utilized St. Joseph Museums’ Emotional Toolbox Program.
The program focuses heavily on stress and sensory feeling for stress management. It’s a proactive and engaging approach to programming that Kami Jones hopes will become more often utilized. Jones, who manages communications and group tours with St. Joseph Museums, plans to bring the program to more schools and places across the community for free with help from settlement funds.
“Has there been a substance abuse issue in the home? Because it does change the way that your brain actually develops, and by giving people good tools to start with to combat stressful situations in order to change their brain chemistry, in order to help them through without ever having to turn to illicit drugs is a good place to start,” she said.
The museum has organized Emotional Tool Box programs with nonprofit organizations like Sisters of Solace as well as companies and surrounding school districts.
“And then for those who have already fallen through the cracks, having those services that are available to them to help them get off of those drugs and to help them actually go through that,” she said.
With settlement money available for this year’s groups and applicants each year until 2039, 2024 is just the start of new opportunities for those looking to help the community recover from the crisis, and prevent others from falling into it.
“It’s important that these programs are around for those people that come to grips with their reality and want to change,” Fetty said.
