By Jerry Burnes/Iron Range Today

ELY — Kap Wilkes heard it from interviews and surveys throughout the Ely area: Substance abuse and the opioid epidemic were impacting the community.

The vicious cycle of addiction, rehabilitation and relapse had ridden through the scenic Boundary Waters city, as it had through Greater Minnesota, the Twin Cities, Midwest and nationally.

Addressing chronic mental illness and substance abuse was the reason Well Being Development was created in 2010 as a nonprofit that focuses on providing education and resources for people living with these challenges and seeking recovery.

Wilkes, the executive director, said their current work is also oriented at helping the Ely community think about how to support the most vulnerable citizens and seeing people fighting the disease of addiction through a lens of compassion and empathy.  

“What’s motivating me is that we have people dying,” Wilkes said. “It’s difficult and hard, and we’re called as a community to do something from a place of humanity.”

Well Being Development was one of seven community organizations funded through St. Louis County’s first round of grants as a result of national class action lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

The nonprofit received $134,957 from the $1.2 million distributed by the county during “Round 1” of funding, which focused on harm reduction and prevention.

St. Louis County has received about $2.5 million through the settlements so far and is estimated to see a total of $18 million to flow in over the next 18 years, said Jana Blomberg, community health program coordinator.

The Opioid Remediation Subcommittee was created to make recommendations to the county board on the distribution of the St. Louis County’s opioid settlement funds. This subcommittee is of experts, people with lived experience, and broad representation of stakeholders from across the St. Louis County region. The committee participated in reviewing and scoring proposals for county board approval and is now seeking proposals for the third round of funding, which is focused on upstream prevention.

“It’s rooted in partnerships and collaboration because we can’t do this work in silos — that’s key,” Blomberg said. “We held quarterly meetings with the funded organizations and the feedback was good, to share success stories, work through barriers together and at least know you’re in the trenches together.”

Nationally, more than $50 billion is expected for state and local governments across the U.S. through opioid settlements with various companies, according to KFF Health News, which tracks fund distribution to the states. Those funds will continue to come in despite the Supreme Court reversing a settlement with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, which sought to protect the company’s owners from the lawsuit.

Blomberg said the county has not received an official update on how or if the reversal will impact future funding estimates.

To date, the state of Minnesota has collected more than $76 million from the settlements to fund programs through the Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council (OERAC), a group of professionals, lawmakers, advocates and more that are tasked with addressing the epidemic and opioid addiction statewide.

As settlement funds pour into the state coffers, 75 percent goes to the cities and counties throughout Minnesota and 25 percent goes to the OERAC, which finances its own set of projects separate from the county. 

More than $581,000 has been distributed to Itasca County, while Hennepin County received by far the most in the state with more than $9.7 million. Cities that opted in and reached certain population thresholds were also funded. In St. Louis County, more than $586,000 was sent to Duluth and about $10,000 to Proctor.

The statewide OERAC this year granted $797,000 to Minnesota North College-Mesabi Range in Virginia to empower individuals with opioid use disorder to obtain an education for substance use disorder counseling. The group also sent $492,000 to the Essentia Institute of Rural Health.

St. Louis County didn’t factor population size into its distribution process, Blomberg said, but tried to strike a balance among organizations that worked county-wide, ones focused in northern parts of the county and others centered on Duluth.

“It was more concept and approach and what the proposals contained,” she added. “We looked at what the impact could be and the impact of substance use and the epidemic across the county.”

Well Being Development was funded to start the process of locating a recovery residence in the 3,200-person city of Ely for care coordination and recovery support. Wilkes, the executive director, said there is a preferred site that will be secured late this year or early 2025. She’s applying for other grants in the meantime to support the group’s effort and housing goal.

Wilkes said housing climbed to the top of the needs list as the organization set out on its research. The idea of living in a stable environment and transitioning from crisis to stability can help end the cycle for a person before they relapse, she added, then reducing the impacts on families and services.

Drug overdose deaths more than doubled in St. Louis County between 2018 and 2021, rising from 31 to 73, with a steady increase along the way in 2019 (43 deaths) and 2020 (50). Opioid overdose calls increased 225% from 2018 to 2022, according to county data, and synthetic opioid overdoses rose by 1,260% from 2011 to 2021.

Panning out to the statewide view, Minnesota reported 331 opioid overdose deaths in 2018, per state Department of Health.

Drug abuse is the most common reason children are placed outside their home in Minnesota and St. Louis County. About 40,000 children were screened for child protection reports across the state in 2017, up from 26,000 in 2014. County data showed 67% of its out-of-home placements from 2017 to 2022 were related to drug use in the household.

“We found that people know what works and we are applying those ideas to a small town at the end of the road,” Wilkes said. “A recovery residence isn’t about addressing just housing, but simultaneously walking alongside residents and providing them access to treatment and a community that creates a sense of belonging. It’s a person-centered approach that is multifaceted and all of it needs to happen, all at the same time.”

In Chisholm, United Way of Northeastern Minnesota applied its $34,000 in county opioid settlement funds to expand and double the Lunch Buddies program for the 2023-24 school year.

The program is a one-on-one mentoring partnership for first through fourth graders identified by school staff as needing another positive adult in their life during the day, with a wide range of referrals coming into the United Way staff. That range included students with parents incarcerated or who have been exposed to opioid and substance abuse in the home, said Erin Shay, executive director of United Way of Northeastern Minnesota.

Lunch Buddies originated from a conversation between United Way staff and St. Louis County to work with kids entering or already in the judicial system, specifically teenagers, but after meeting with people around the topic, the organization wanted to aim its effort at younger students.

“We wanted to be more upstream and try to be more proactive in working with kids and providing them with those supportive services at an early age,” Shay said.

Hibbing was the host site for the pilot program, but it was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was re-piloted in 2021-22 and this past school year had 34 student-mentor pairings meeting weekly in 10 schools from Keewatin to International Falls, Aurora and more, said Sarah Gardeski, education and childhood programs specialist.

Beyond lunch, the students have an activity tote for their mentor time that includes board games, Legos and other activities that can help work on social-emotional skills that were purchased with the opioid funds. Over winter break, they were also sent home with a bag of crayons, books and crafts. At the end of the year, a mentor-mentee party is hosted by United Way, with parents invited.

“It was cool to see — introducing a new game that they had never had in their little activity tote before, so they got to build that and then I left the Legos there,” Gardeski said. “A lot of times if the kids didn’t want to necessarily talk with their mentor during the day, they just wanted to pull those out and start building stuff. Then building stuff — ‘Oh, what are you building today?’ — would get them talking if they didn’t want to.”

Lunch Buddies starts in the fall and runs into May to allow teachers time to get the school year started and wind down before summer. Mentor applications for the 2024-25 school year are set to open in August.

As opioid funding continues to come into St. Louis County, Blomberg said the community needs around the epidemic are ongoing.

Some organizations with grant funding hit barriers to fully realize their efforts, which included staffing as the top issue. Others like Well Being Development needed more time.

The county has also helped point communities or organizations toward resources as new needs arise, whether that’s a volunteer fire department needing narcan or naloxone, or recognizing a group that might need funding to help the region.

Cities and townships can reach out to the county or attend the annual public opioid meeting in-person or virtually to learn more, she added.

“This isn’t going to be solved through one round of funding,” Blomberg said. “People are still dying from opioids and still have family members being impacted. We need to continue to work for the community and look to the organizations that are doing the frontline and supporting work on what needs to be done.”