Bay Area First Step runs a community center in Coos Bay. The center’s lobby, pictured here, offers a place for people to relax and visit.
By BEN BOTKIN/Oregon Capital Chronicle
A recovery center to help people exit a life embattled by drug addiction is in the pipeline for Curry County, a coastal region tucked in the southwest corner of Oregon.
Bay Area First Step, a nonprofit that provides recovery and housing services in neighboring Coos County, will receive $2.36 million in opioid settlement funding to start and operate the recovery center, which will connect people to services and offer a gathering place for activities, workshops and support groups. Opioid settlement funding comes from litigation that states filed against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies for the roles they played in putting addictive painkillers into households across the U.S., spawning an opioid epidemic.
Since then, illicit fentanyl has flooded the streets in Oregon from urban Portland to rural Curry County, which has a population of about 23,000 people. Overall, more than 1,000 Oregonians died of fentanyl overdoses in 2023, compared to 280 in 2019, state data show.
Rural areas have fewer deaths compared with denser areas, but the impact can cut just as deep in smaller communities. From 2018 to 2021, an average of five people died of opioid overdoses annually in Curry County. Adjusted for population differences, Curry County had a slightly higher opioid overdose death rate than Multnomah County: 21.5 deaths per 100,000 people compared to 18.6, according to state overdose data.
Yet rural areas also have fewer options for people as they seek treatment and programs to support their recovery. State officials have noticed, and earlier this month awarded the opioid settlement funds to the project as part of $13 million for projects primarily in rural areas, including Douglas, Josephine, Klamath and Wasco counties.
In Curry County, the center will be the first of its kind, and the funding will allow Bay Area First Step to expand its footprint along the Oregon Coast. The organization will base the new center on the one in Coos County.
“It’s kind of like the first step to hopefully providing more and more resources in that area, not just from us, but from other organizations and from people in the community,” said Steve Sanden, executive director of Bay Area First Step.
Bay Area First Step, founded in 1995, has more than 30 certified peer workers who work with clients and have their own experience with overcoming drug addiction and dealing with mental health conditions. Peer workers are a key part of Bay Area’s outpatient treatment and recovery services. The organization also provides recovery housing, which offers a transitional place for people as they start the path to a new life. Most of the organization’s work is in Coos County, though it sends peer workers to do outreach in Curry County.
With the grant, the organization will have funding to staff and operate a facility for three years, as well as cover administrative and operational costs like transportation, supplies and renovations.
A recovery community center offers a mix of services. People interested in accessing treatment and programs can drop by and receive information about how to access those services or housing information through Bay Area First Step or other organizations.
Recovery centers also serve as a space for support groups, games and activities or workshops about life skills like how to cook, shop on a budget or eat healthy.
“We really use that as kind of a pathway into our organization and try to support people in whatever ways we can,” Sanden said.
Sanden said the new center’s location within Curry County is not yet decided, though it may be in Brookings because of high needs there. Because the grant was just awarded, he said he doesn’t know when the center will open.
Coos County center
The Curry County center is expected to work similar to the one in Coos Bay, where an intake coordinator first meets with new clients, fills out applications and tells them about outpatient treatment and housing. The intake coordinator also connects the person to a peer mentor for ongoing support.
The center tries to make people feel welcome, with couches in the community center where people visit, read and watch films.
“It’s a safe place for individuals to come,” Theresa Keys, resource director for Bay Area First Step, said in an interview. “We do a variety of different activities for people to engage in whether they are struggling that day or they don’t have a safe place to go.”
The center has bingo games, art classes, cooking classes and other workshops, such as how to build a resume to prepare for a job search. The center’s staff also has a driver’s license workshop so people with multiple driving violations can learn how to pay off fines and get their license reinstated.
The center offers outside activities as well, including hiking trips and bowling. They’re free and open to everyone in the community.
Keys said the center’s activities and resources encourage people to enter treatment and helps them maintain a drug- or alcohol-free life by introducing them to hobbies and new friends. Healthy activities can prevent boredom and loneliness that can drive people back into addiction.
“If we’re alone, then we’re in our mind, and then we start thinking about our old friends or go to the old places that we used to hang out,” Keys said.
- Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.
I’m sorry but ‘out patient’ doesn’t work for drug addiction or alcohol addiction for that matter. Taking an addict out of society until they are clean and learn how to work and be responcible is the only way. Many of these programs are a total waste of money in my eyes. You have to hit rock bottom and wake up to the fact that you must change your way of life and want to change to make it. Out patient doesn’t work.