Joint subcommittee meet to discuss Opioid Settlement funding

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The New Hanover County and City of Wilmington joint subcommittee meet on February 20th to discuss the Opioid Settlement and some of the projects funded by that money.

According to City Councilman Luke Waddell, the meeting went well.

“You know it was the 3rd of 4th iteration of that meeting where we’ve been working through that budget to try and solidify what we need to take to the city and the county to ratify the budget that we approved today. Ultimately, it was a good meeting,” Waddell explained.

One of the projects that has been doing well is the “Getting Home Street Outreach Program,” which helps homeless people dealing with mental health issues and substance abuse problems. When speaking with New Hanover County Commissioner Deb Hays, she is proud of how the program is doing so far.

“We needed to do something that would help the homeless and hired an outreach person and he was so tremendous, is so tremendous, it is working and we’re getting people the services that they need and we’re doing everything we can to break that cycle of homelessness,” Hays said.

The joint subcommittee says one way they can making sure they’re making the best use of the settlement money is a six-month accountability check-in. That would include a report from the heads of those programs, to report back with data to determine if the program is seeing success or not.  Hays explained how the plan would operate when checking in on some of the programs.

“We don’t know everything; we’ve got all the experts in the room and we’re trying to put the best plan forward. We wanted to make sure we had the ability to be swift, so instead of a year we’re doing six months, I think that’s a good thing,” Hays added.