Frey, other city leaders discuss thousands in opioid crisis funding

Emily Baude and Ben Henry KSTP

Frey, other city leaders discuss thousands in opioid crisis funding

The first round of funding in a settlement in connection with the opioid crisis is being awarded to several organizations.

Recipients of the Community Opioid Response and Engagement (CORE) funding are receiving the money for outreach, housing support and evidence-based addiction treatment.

Awardees include Access Healing, which will receive $20,000, while Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES) and Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches (GMCC) will be awarded $100,000. Meanwhile, Generation Hope will get $78,844, and the Minnesota Somali Community Center is expected to receive $74,994.

“We’re really going to make a difference in people’s lives,” said Nafisa Mohamed, a peer recovery specialist with GMCC. “It’s like life or death.”

Mohamed said a key part of their work is the culturally specific services they offer.

“I find it very important because I grew up here, and I do see how big substance use disorder and mental health affects families and the people who are suffering,” Mohamed said.

Representatives for the organizations joined Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Health Department Commissioner Damōn Chaplin on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the settlement funding.

“What this drug does to your brain is by magnitude more harmful than anything we’ve seen in the past,” Mayor Frey said.

“We want to be able to prevent people from getting addicted from the beginning. We want to be able to respond when someone is in crisis. And then we want to be able to provide treatment so they’re able to get better. You have to have those three ingredients as a recipe for success,” Frey added.

Minneapolis accounts for 24% of all opioid-related deaths despite making up 7% of the state’s population, according to the City of Minneapolis.