Finance Committee - 12/06/2017 Page 6
happen with our nonprofit network, which we have a pretty good one here in the city. I’ve got to give huge
kudos to Harbor Homes for stepping up. Honestly, | think that this short money will increase the buy-in. It
shows the city has buy-in, and grantors out there will look at that and say, well, if the city is going to buy in,
maybe we should too. I’m all for it.
Mayor Donchess
Part of the obligation that Revive would have to develop this information is to make the case that were
someone else to step forward and fund additional recovery efforts that it would yield results. That’s the goal of
providing the detailed reporting that we’re asking for.
Alderman Clemons
Do they have somebody in mind for this position?
Mayor Donchess
| think not yet. They would advertise for the position. There are quite a few people, | think, who would be
interested, but | don’t think they have anyone specifically in mind.
Alderman Clemons
| don’t disagree with the sentiment and | don’t disagree with what the city is trying to do. | guess where I’m
hesitant is how do we determine — because if you look at these statistics on here, there’s literally 500, 600, 700
people that walk through the door. No, 1,061 people were taken to recovery facilities. How is one person
supposed to even decide how to split those cases? | just am concerned that we’re asking somebody to do an
impossible task. It’s a high stressful job with a lot of burnout, and | guess the struggle that I’m having with it is
why only one position.
Mayor Donchess
Well, this is an issue that we’ve discussed with the whole Safe Stations team. The way that we started into this
is a few things. First, once a person comes out of recovery, they’re on their own. They’re not necessarily in
touch with the treatment facility where they received treatment, even someone who has not done an inpatient
program but is on intensive outpatient. Once they leave treatment, they are out in the world and no one really
knows where they are. So Harbor Homes has been trying to begin to call some of these people over a period
of months, and the success rate in reaching people is very low. They've got different numbers, they maybe
have gone somewhere else, they’re living somewhere else. So we’re not really able to determine where is
everybody or how well are they doing.
There was a report in the New York Times about a gentleman police officer up in Laconia by the name of Eric
Adams, and they do not have a Safe Stations program. Several years ago, he, as a police officer, was
responding to a lot of OD calls in Laconia, medical calls. On his own time, initially, he began to follow-up with
the people that were taken to the hospital. He had no expertise in recovery; he’s not a trained, licensed alcohol
and drug abuse counselor or anything like that. But he had some credibility, he had access into the emergency
room, he knew that people were, he knew social service agencies and the like, and he began working with
people. He’d just call them up, “Hey, Joe, how's it going? Do you need any help?” And he began working with
an expanding group of people. He began to have considerable success in keeping people in recovery, to the
point where, ultimately, the Laconia police department put him on this full-time. Rather than his normal police
duties, he began into recovery assistance full-time. He, being unable to handle the entire caseload, as you
have suggested, the community responded because they’d seen what he was able to do; they responded by
establishing a much broader group of recovery coaches. Now, most of the people who get taken to the
emergency room in Laconia have access to one of many recovery coaches, all of which began with the work
done by Eric Adams.
