♪♪
-Good morning.
Thank you so much for being here.
My name is Tanya Kim.
I'm the Director of the Seattle Human Services Department,
and it's my pleasure to kick us off this morning.
Our mission at HSD is to connect people
with resources and solutions during times of need
so that we can all live, learn, work,
and take part in a strong, healthy community.
So with that, I am excited.
I am thrilled that we're here,
so you can hear from Mayor Harrell as well as
our other guests about the critical new city investments
that will address our city's greatest need --
supporting loved ones suffering
from the impacts of the opioid crisis.
You've heard a lot about this.
This crisis touches all of us,
whether it be our family members, our friends,
our neighbors, our colleagues,
or someone experiencing symptoms
from opioid use disorders on our streets.
Mayor Harrell has been committed
and compassionately addressing this crisis
and providing an evidence-based and evidence-informed
public health response.
That's been his challenge to all of us.
Last year,
specifically he tasked the Human Services Department
with making new investments in post-overdose care,
opioid medication delivery, and care management.
We initiated a funding process incorporating
leading strategies of addiction experts.
And through that process, we yielded finalists,
you'll hear from them,
who are long-time experts in the field of addiction
and behavioral health management,
and taking an urgent
and innovative approach to addressing
substance use disorder.
Thank you, Mayor Harrell,
for your leadership in this critical space.
I know that there are many of you across this region
who are also investing in this program area.
We thank you.
Also, for our RFP,
wanting to thank our federal partners with HUD
who allowed us as a city to be creative
and responsive with alternatives to supporting
our communities in need.
And with that,
I have the pleasure of introducing our mayor,
Mayor Harrell, for the announcement.
-Thank you.
This week, I was asked the same question at two different forums
and the question was, what makes Seattle
either special or unique?
And what I tried to describe concisely and clearly was this.
That we can take a building and create it into a venue
where we will save lives.
That we have one of the best non-profit
and treatment ecosystems in the country.
That we have committed,
dedicated leaders from different branches of government,
state, county, local, working together to save lives.
We are excited to announce what was heard loudly
by many folks here in this room,
dedicating their lives to saving others.
I want to give a few shout-outs to just a few folks
before I say something specific about what we're trying
to do here today.
I know Representative Emily Alvarez,
who generally doesn't like a lot of attention,
we want to thank you for your consistent leadership
in putting 3.5 million, I believe,
a capital request in the House.
I know the Governor's Office --
I think Amber Leaders is here,
working with the Governor's Office,
making sure all this could come to fruition.
We have, again, county, state, and federal partners
who have contributed to this project.
I want to thank the University of Washington,
their Addictions, Drug,
and Alcohol Institute and Public Health
and Seattle King County for their partnership
in the design of this facility.
And lastly, but certainly not less important,
are DESC and Evergreen Treatment Services,
who provide the critical support
to some of our most valuable neighbors every day.
And that's what we are here to indeed celebrate.
[ Faint applause ] Yes. Good. Thank you.
See, it's only going to take one person to start there.
We are here to celebrate the awardees
and the finalists of the city's
$7 million investment in capital improvements
for facilities providing post-overdose care
and enhanced addiction treatment services.
You know, the public health space is not an area
where the city historically has operated.
But, quite candidly, the conditions we see on our streets
because of fentanyl require every level of government
to step up and be involved in advancing urgent, compassionate,
loving, and innovative solutions.
Simply, lives are at stake.
Many people may look at this space
and think how it affects them.
Am I walking around a person,
or might I get somehow influenced,
from a health perspective, on someone that's struggling?
And these leaders and warriors in back of me look at it,
how it affects the addicted person,
the person that's struggling.
Purely and simply looking at how we can help.
This is why our administration prioritized funding
for projects providing post-overdose care
and mobile medication delivery,
breaking the cycle of repeated overdoses
by stopping painful withdrawal symptoms
to help people find a pathway to recovery and support.
What we talk about as self-optimization.
They weren't made to just be addicted to this poison
that's out there.
They were made to be human beings with lives
that could be fulfilled for a good purpose,
and that's how we approach this work.
It's very important that the two finalists,
DESC and Evergreen Treatment Services,
will be located -- these --
these post-overdose stabilization recovery efforts
in our downtown neighborhoods.
This is where people live.
This should be where people --
where we can help people fulfill their lives.
Now, once this facility is launched,
Seattle's Fire Health 99 teams will be able to bring people
who have experienced non-fatal overdoses right here,
creating, again, a continuum of supportive services,
and that's what we're trying to do all the way through.
With this focus on building connections
to treatment and recovery services,
we are creating the systems needed to change
what we are seeing in our streets
and building a healthier future for everyone in this city.
And again, I say with a level of humility,
it's really my honor to serve with such fine people
that have dedicated their most precious asset,
which is their time, their energy, their heart,
into this kind of work.
I don't know what images people had
of the Morrison Hotel before today.
It might be the first time some of you
of course have been in here, and that's okay.
But what we're going to start thinking about,
from this day forward, is here at the Morrison Hotel,
this is where we save lives.
So thank you for being here,
and to speak a little bit more about this project,
I'm going to introduce Steven Bullock
from the Downtown Emergency Service Center,
and then we'll have a few other speakers.
And, Steve, I'll relinquish the non-working microphones to you.
[ Applause ]
-Good morning, everyone.
I'd like to share a story with you,
and they told me to keep it, brief because I can talk.
My first trauma -- I remember my first trauma.
I was 10 years old.
I lived in the housing projects in Baltimore.
I walked down the stairs
and I saw a lifeless body in the stairwell.
It traumatized me. I didn't --
I knew it was a heroin overdose because the community I grew up,
that's where we suffered from in the '70s.
And I was scared.
I was scared and the heroin and drugs was the boogeyman for me.
I didn't know how people got addicted,
how they died, but it was just the boogeyman for me.
This past week, I get to work,
and we have seven overdoses in five days in this vicinity,
this two-block vicinity between the 500 block and 600 block.
Look, this is not normal. Seven overdoses in five days.
This is not normal.
Luckily, when I got to work early we had a gentleman
who is our facilities tech. I want to use his name,
because his name is Sean, because he's a hero.
He reversed two of those overdoses.
So, we saved five people and two were fatalities.
And here I am again, scared.
Because in theory, I know how to apply Narcan,
but I've never done it.
And I'm watching my employee of facilities tech just stand --
move me out of the way
and respond like a professional MRT person would do.
Again, this is not normal. I leave, I'm not scared anymore.
I'm afraid.
I'm afraid of what this opioid crisis has done
to our community.
I'm afraid that every time our employees come to work,
this is what they're faced with every day,
trying to revive someone.
A lifeless body, if you ever see that, it works on you.
You're traumatized.
You don't -- you can't even have a normal day.
You cannot go back to your office and send an email.
You have to get your wellness back
before you can even start work.
Again, this is not normal.
So I'm afraid.
But with the support of county, city, and the state,
everyone who's participating in this program,
this opioid treatment center is what we need in this community.
It will be able to address the need for people
that suffer from opioid addiction
and allow them to get treatment and care
to deal with this crisis that we're dealing with.
So again, I thank everyone in this room
who made this possible and the collaboration
it took to make this possible so we can make this work.
Thank you. Daniel Malone.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you, Steven.
Steven is DESC's Deputy Director for Operations.
I'm DESC's Executive Director. My name is Daniel Malone.
And I'm really delighted to be in this space
with you all here today.
This space is a really important facility in Seattle history.
It has a lot of different uses over many years,
but for more than four decades,
it served as a really essential,
life-saving emergency shelter facility for people.
And we've changed that operation into something
that works better for people in terms
of the physical environment.
But we have this wonderful space, high ceilings,
big windows, big floor plate
that we can do some really wonderful things in.
And that's exactly what's going to happen here
in this great Pioneer Square space.
We're going to create a behavioral health clinic
that has a specific component
that we're calling the ORCA Center,
the Overdose Recovery and Care Access Center,
that is going to receive people in the aftermath
of an overdose reversal.
And they're going to get the kind of care
that they need to stabilize
and ideally to initiate treatment at that moment.
We've got some more work to do as a community about then
where do they go,
where are they going to stay if they don't have a place
to live in those situations.
That's a conversation for another time,
but for right now,
we're just delighted to be able to renovate this
really cool space here in Pioneer Square
and make for a new life-saving facility for people.
So you heard from me and Steven from DESC.
You're going to hear from some other great colleagues
in the community,
but the final speaker you're going to hear from
is the most important of all,
which is also our colleague, Lupe Hurtado,
who's going to really,
I think, drive home why we need something like this
and what it's going to be able to do for people.
So stay tuned for that here.
I want to second
what both the Mayor and Steven said
about the many partners that are making this possible.
So, you're going to hear from some others here,
including the University of Washington Addictions,
Drug and Alcohol Institute,
who's kind of the visionary behind what we're about
to be doing here.
We've had multiple funding partners step forward
to make this a reality.
You're hearing about the major contributions
from the City of Seattle and federal partners here today.
I want to also make special mention of King County
coming forward for both capital and operating
funds for this program that we're setting up.
The State of Washington
also providing significant both capital and operating
funds for this project.
The Governor supported that in his budget proposal.
The legislature made sure this came through.
Representative Alvarado is here.
This is her district
where this life-saving work is going to happen here.
Friends from King County Department
of Community and Human Services are here.
The Public Health Seattle and King County are here.
All these folks are actively involved
in the planning and preparation
work that's been going on to make this thing a reality.
And so I really can't thank them all enough.
We've had significant support from business leaders
in bringing forward the funding,
the pressure to make sure there's going to be funding
to make this happen,
and that includes groups like the Alliance for Pioneer Square
and the Downtown Seattle Association
and former Governor Gregoire's Challenge Seattle group.
So we really thank them all as well.
And I think that is mostly what I wanted to say
about what we're going to do here.
So thanks -- Oh, and I'm sorry.
A key catalyst to making this happen was a private donor.
His name is Peter Shapiro, and he's here with us today.
[ Applause ]
He's made a major contribution to making all of this possible.
And the way these things work a lot of times
is that kind of helps things snowball from there,
and other people want to get involved in something
that others who they respect are involved in.
And so really delighted and thank you, Peter,
for really helping move us here.
Okay. So with that,
I'm going to turn this over to another community colleague
who does a separate set of work
than what we're going to be doing in here,
but it's essential work
that we will be integrating our services with very closely.
And that is Steve Woolworth from Evergreen Treatment Services.
Steve. [ Applause ]
-Good morning.
We at Evergreen Treatment Services are honored
and appreciative to be considered a finalist
for this capital award.
We are already working with the capital team
and the Human Services Department
to re-scope our project in the wake of the catastrophic flood
we endured during the deep freeze event in January.
These dollars represent an important contribution
to what will be a health and recovery campus on Airport Way.
I can assure you we will re-scope this project
to meet qualification requirements.
Our campus will be a key component in the care pathway
that starts here,
with the Post-Overdose Stabilization Center operated
by our long-term partner, DESC.
After 23 hours,
participants will need to continue their treatment
for opioid use disorder,
and our campus will be uniquely positioned to
both geographically and clinically
to be the next step in the care continuum.
Also uniquely positioned is our mobile methadone unit,
which we just deployed to Pioneer Square last week.
At present, we're dispensing life-saving medication
to 138 patients in downtown, 121 in Belltown,
and 17 in Pioneer Square,
a number we expect to steadily increase
over the weeks and months ahead.
Our next mobile methadone unit,
paid for by an award from the City Council,
will be arriving in June,
and we hope to have it licensed and on the street by July.
So we are deeply appreciative
to the City Council and Mayor Harrell's administration,
along with the state legislature,
and particularly Representative Alvarado,
as well as King County for their support,
their partnership, and their leadership in this work.
And let me just close by saying
that when Mayor Harrell was elected,
he was adamant that he had no investment in locking up those
who are sick and suffering on our streets.
These investments demonstrate his continuing commitment
to expanding behavioral health supports right here in downtown,
where they are deeply needed.
Speaking as a representative of the provider community,
I probably don't need to tell you we've been
through some really hard times
and trying times with what we're up against,
but I'm increasingly confident
that there are better days ahead.
Next, I'd like to bring to the microphone
another close collaborator and colleague,
Dr. Caleb Banta-Green.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-Good morning. I'm Caleb Banta-Green.
I'm a research professor in the School of Medicine at the UW,
where I direct
the Center for Community-Engaged Drug Education,
Epidemiology, and Research.
It's a mouthful, but we're going to need all of that
to make this thing work and figure out how it works.
I'll share with you, I'm just really heartened to be here.
I was sharing with John earlier,
I was a bike messenger in 1990 in this beautiful city,
and I know this corner very well.
And I did my training at Evergreen
when it was on First South in '95.
So I've been around a while.
I'm very heartened to be here.
This really came about in part by a conversation
I had with Dr. Michael Sayer, from Seattle Medic One,
and we were talking
when an NIH grant application came out about overdose,
what can we do about that?
And he basically said something along the lines of,
We can't keep taking everybody to the ER who's had an overdose,
and we don't want to leave people on the streets,
and we need something else.
And that was really the catalyst for this.
We got that funding,
and we've been meeting with dozens of people
who are represented here for over a year and a half
in terms of planning this ORCA Center.
And folks showing up --
I think we've had 16 providers showing up,
and I think maybe one's getting paid on the grant,
but people are really excited by that.
They're really excited about this product
and that makes me feel really energized
and it's a very good omen for things to come.
And you heard it earlier,
we need a much more complete continuum of care,
and that's something we'll be looking at doing.
And we do a lot of work in partnership
with Public Health Seattle King County and others,
actually asking people who use drugs, What do you need?
What do you want?
And then we check the research and we see
if it all comes together, and then we do it.
And what they tell us,
over three quarters of the folks who use opioids and fentanyl,
they want to stop or reduce their use.
They want the most effective treatments,
which are methadone and buprenorphine.
And they've tried to get healthcare,
and the majority of them have not been able to get healthcare
because of the process and often the way they're treated.
And so we need something different.
We're building off of something that we started back in 2015
with the city's help, with Brad Finegood,
who is at the county, still at the county,
and that was a low-barrier buprenorphine clinic
at the downtown syringe services program.
And that low-barrier buprenorphine clinic had tremendous outcomes,
people lining up hours early to get services.
We know if you build it, people will come.
And that's part of what we're doing here.
For people who aren't familiar,
opioid use disorder is a medical condition,
it is a chronic condition, you cannot fix it,
you can help people manage it,
you can help them get the tools and the medications to do that.
And when they get stabilized,
you can then start to help them rebuild their lives
and move into recovery.
And recovery is a process of a restoration of function.
It isn't binary.
It isn't people just magically stop using drugs.
Many people may continue to use substances.
Our goal is to help them recover and regain their functioning.
That helps create stability for them.
It reduces chaos in their life,
and it reduces chaos in their family and friends
and in our community,
which is why we need to put all those pieces together.
So we have this NIH grant, I'll mention it briefly.
I know everybody really wants to hear about research,
but trust me, it's actually interesting.
And what's really important about that,
it's a partnership of my co-principal investigators,
Dr. Julia Hood with Public Health Seattle King County.
She's an epidemiologist there.
And the idea behind this is that not only
are we building these new services,
which we know are evidence-based.
We're putting pieces together that we know work,
and we're trying to make them easy to access.
As part of the grant,
what I'm excited about
is that we'll actually be monitoring it very actively.
We'll be having our clinical teams, meeting with FIRE,
meeting with folks who use drugs on a regular basis
to figure out how this thing is working,
what's working well, what isn't,
how do we adapt it, how to learn from that process.
The drug market is going to change, unfortunately.
We're going to need to adapt to it.
Our care system, our treatment medications,
they're changing very, very rapidly, which is exciting,
but we need this continuous process --
improvement process to really monitor and evaluate things.
And then we'll use that to look at outcomes.
Are we reducing EMS calls?
Are we reducing emergency department visits?
Are we reducing mortality?
And trying to look at also, What is the cost impact of this?
What is the cost impact for people and for society?
So we're super excited about this.
We're also doing a lot of qualitative work,
asking folks in the community about the impacts
that they're seeing.
And I'm really excited about the impact,
again, on this neighborhood, on this corner,
and as it radiates out.
What can we do to help make this a healthier place?
It's going to take time.
We're not going to get it perfect.
We're not going to magically fix things.
This is not flipping a switch.
That's super important for people to understand.
Patience is something,
a virtue we're all going to have to really embrace
as we think about how to support people who use opioids.
So with that, I'm really excited to be here.
I thank everybody for all their support.
I'm going to hand it over to John Scholes.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-Well, good morning, everybody.
It's a pleasure to be here as the President and CEO
of the Downtown Seattle Association
and also as a member
of the Board of the Downtown Emergency Service Center
along with some board colleagues --
Sandeep and Brianna and Peter.
Peter, thank you for your investment
again in this facility.
And alongside some of the great staff members
of this incredible organization, DESC,
that does incredible work in our community.
As Daniel noted, this building has served a lot of purposes
over its many, many years.
It was a hotel, it was a congregate shelter, a clinic,
and now will serve folks that have experienced an overdose.
And just as this building has had to adapt over its history,
as a community, we need to adapt to this new crisis.
It's a crisis with a capital "C,"
it's an emergency with a capital "E."
We had nearly 1,400 people in King County
die from drugs last year.
Washington State led the nation in the percent increase
in folks dying from drugs,
a 40% increase in 2023 compared to 2022.
In downtown,
we had 100% increase in calls to 911 for overdoses,
just in the 3 square miles of the 82 or so of our city.
And 60% of all of the drug overdose deaths in our county
occurred in Seattle.
So we need to adapt and adjust.
This is a whole new ballgame.
We need a whole new game plan.
We need to take the field differently
than we have in combating previous drug crises.
And we've seen a complete intersection now
of the homelessness crisis
and the drug crisis in our community.
Drugs were the leading cause of death
of people living outside in King County last year.
We need a new approach and that's what this is about,
and I commend it.
My predecessor, 20-plus years ago,
stood alongside leaders
of the Downtown Emergency Service Center
in proposing the 1811 East Lake Project
to address the needs of chronic alcoholics,
folks who were on the street
that were cycling through our EMS system,
cycling through Harborview,
costing our community a lot
and costing a lot in their own health and in lives
and our community.
It was controversial at the time.
It was proven to have worked.
That was a new approach to a crisis at that time.
This drug, as we all know,
is much more lethal than certainly alcohol,
but much more lethal than heroin.
It's much more available, it's affordable,
it's easily distributed.
It's a new day, we need a new approach.
I commend all the good people in this room
that are doing great work on a difficult crisis.
Health One, Amy with the Care Team,
the first responders that are here,
the other nonprofit providers, Chloe from Reach,
you all have done incredibly difficult work
that was difficult pre-COVID,
was made more difficult by the pandemic,
and is being made more difficult by this new,
highly lethal synthetic drug.
So thank you for what you do.
I'm encouraged by our efforts,
the announcement today, and all the work we have ahead.
And a final thank you to our Mayor.
We've got some great assets in the city.
We're making great progress under his leadership.
Certainly we face challenges.
He's not shying away from those challenges.
I think this may be the most significant one
and he's leaning in.
And I appreciate all of you leaning in as well.
And for the moment we've been waiting for, Lupe,
who does this work on the ground, on the front lines.
Lupe Hurtado with the Opioid Treatment Network.
I want to welcome her up.
[ Applause ]
-Good morning. My name is Lupe Hurtado.
I'm a Peer Counselor with the Opioid Treatment Network,
also called OTN.
OTN is a low-barrier program
that offers medication for opioid use disorder.
OTN primarily offers medications such as buprenorphine
and Sublocade to support clients who want to reduce
or stop their opioid use.
Buprenorphine has been proven to reduce the risk of overdose,
manage opioid withdrawal symptoms, and decrease cravings.
As a peer, I use my experience to help clients navigate
medication management and support goals
around harm reduction and health.
I also have experience with opioid use disorder
and using these medications to establish my recovery.
The expansion of treatment and buprenorphine services
are vital to reducing overdose deaths
and supporting public health in our community,
especially for those who are living unhoused
and living with limited resources,
especially for those who experience discrimination,
stigma, and racism.
We understand that drug use happens and the best way
to offer these interventions is to provide space
for post-overdose care, access to medications,
and community health engagement.
Low-barrier opioid treatment programs, drop-in centers,
and syringe service programs
serve as medical points of care for people who use drugs.
The need for the support of these programs
is essential to preventing overdose
and strengthening our community.
Often what I hear from clients using fentanyl
is a constant awareness and desire
to break the cycle of opioid dependence.
I've also seen the growth in individuals
when their insight into drug use is valued
and they can dictate their hierarchy of needs.
For those whose lives have been affected by opioid dependence,
these services and resources are essential.
Best practice shows us that when barriers are removed
and SUD services are expanded, lives are saved.
People need a safe place
where they can recover from the traumatic experience
of surviving a drug poisoning.
This site will bridge individuals to medical care
and provide connections to programs such as
mental health and housing.
My hope is that the ORCA Center is a place
where people can receive the compassionate care they deserve.
Thank you for listening.
I will now hand it back to Mayor Harrell.
[ Applause ]
-That applause was not for me, Lupe, walking to the podium.
Again, I'll close, and we'll take some questions,
but I want to close by, again, you heard it better.
I won't even try to repeat the brilliance
that came out of these folks in back of me.
I want to thank you for your kind words to me personally,
but more importantly, more importantly,
I think what we heard was levels of government are working.
Volunteers are working.
Treatment service providers are working collectively.
That's how we're going to get this done.
It's so easy
and sometimes seductive to start fighting each other.
It came together nicely under Representative Emily Alvarado
and the Governor's Office and our county partners,
our treatment providers, the volunteers, philanthropy.
Thank you.
And let's get to work. Let's get to work.
And with that, let's take some questions if there are any.
Thanks, no questions. Everyone have a great day.
Any questions at all? Seriously.
And I'm going to ask for some help
if there's something technical in nature.
If there are any questions, I'd be more than --
for the press, I'd be more than happy to address any.
Yes, sir?
-How does it work to actually get people from the streets --
If they overdose, you can administer Narcan,
whatever it might be.
How do you -- what is the incentive or push
to get them to actually come here to recover?
And then, to Daniel's point, what comes next?
What's after that?
-So let's take the incident from -- and maybe Chief,
you might have -- or Chief Smith, someone we see,
someone observes a crisis or someone --
there's an emergent situation out there.
Can someone walk through how the mechanics come together?
-Sure. So good morning, everyone.
My name is Harold Scoggins,
Fire Chief of the Seattle Fire Department.
Many of you are aware we put a unit in service
last June called Health 99.
And that unit is dispatched to overdoses
probably about 12 to 15 times every day.
And our goal is to talk people into taking a different path.
So once they're revived with Narcan,
our firefighters and paramedics,
they're all responding, but once they're revived,
if the person says yes, I want to make a change,
Health 99 can now work with our paramedics,
give them buprenorphine in the field,
and this will become a destination.
This happens every single day in the community,
and our Health 99 team is doing an amazing job
in getting people right now to different places.
But this will become a place
where we can bring people to every single day.
Hope that answers your question. -Thank you, that's wonderful.
Who'd like to take the next question?
Okay, yes.
-Hi, maybe Lupe could talk a little bit about this,
just following on David's question.
Can you talk a little bit about sort of
what is needed for people
immediately after surviving an overdose?
You know, what is it that is going to help them
in stabilizing and recovery,
and sort of what can be achieved in the 23 hours
that they might be here?
-So, after a person experiences an overdose and is given Narcan,
what the Narcan does is bump all those opiates
off of their receptors.
And so when they come back from unconsciousness,
they want to use -- like, their body is screaming, you know?
And I think this center will really bridge the gap
because people can come here, and instead of using,
you know, more fentanyl
and maybe falling back into an overdose,
they can get buprenorphine or methadone,
which is going to satiate those receptors.
And also, you know,
they're going to get connected to care for
more long-term stabilization.
-Thank you, Lupe. Did anyone else want to add on?
Caleb?
-And related to your question as well, I mean,
so there's the medical stuff that's going on,
but you have a person who feels really bad
and doesn't want to feel bad.
And right now, the easiest thing
to do is to go use more fentanyl, right?
And so we're trying to create an alternative
that's better than that.
And that alternative isn't just the services we offer.
It's also folks like Lupe,
who can have that conversation with people.
So the staffing here is super important as well,
where it's not just prescribers,
but it's also nurse care managers,
and it's also care navigators and peers
who understand what this is about.
And so part of the thing we'll be learning is,
we don't think we need to convince people to come here,
talk them into coming here.
What we think is that if we offer a great place
and the word starts to spread, people will want to come here.
It's what happened with the low-barrier buprenorphine
back in 2017. Within weeks,
people started talking to each other and lining up.
So we actually hope we can build that,
that this will be a place that people want to go to.
And it isn't just about sort of that post-overdose monitoring.
It also is about medications,
but it's also about harm reduction.
It's also about a place to get naloxone.
It's also about a place to get other supplies and services.
That may be the thing
that they're able to engage in that day.
That's great. We just want people to engage.
I think the most important piece here is a place
where people can engage and connect with someone.
And they may not take advantage of everything
you have to offer on the first day,
but what we find is that eventually they will.
And that's really the goal here,
is to create a place that people want to be.
-Erica?
-So there's been reporting from the city,
it's talking about doing another emphasis zone downtown,
and I'm just curious, you know,
how does this square with the drug law
against public drug use?
And do you have, you know,
how do those two things work together?
Or is there a conflict there
'cause people are going to be afraid of,
you know, potentially authority figures like [inaudible]
-I think what you're just -- you're asking about,
which a lot of people may not follow, is again,
we have to recognize
that in addition to helping people as aggressively
as we can, there are still --
there's still a need to use police to create safety.
And so we haven't made any final decisions.
We've talked to the police department
about what a compassionate,
lawful, constitutional approach could be.
We've made no decisions,
and it's just one of the many strategies in public safety
that we're exploring.
I don't know if anyone else wants to, from my team
that's here, that could speak more on that.
But again, we are very cognizant
that when we use terms like emphasis patrols,
or we're looking at some of the unlawful activity
that occurs, alarms go up.
Dr. Woolworth, I want to thank him for his kind words,
that I've made it clear that we don't criminalize poverty,
and we're not fighting this war on drugs.
We are trying to help. But I have to also realize
that there is gunfire on these streets.
People are committing acts of violence.
So our approach is wholistic by design.
And we have these discussions in all of our departments.
I've created a One Seattle approach
in our department sort of structure,
such that we have structures in place where we talk about it.
And we have difference of opinions,
and we come out with a good program.
So I don't see a contradiction or a conflict at all,
but again, these are just discussions we're having.
Thank you. Yes. -Sorry.
Can you talk a little bit about capacity?
I think the first three months of this year,
there were over 2,400
or 2,500 nonfatal overdoses in King County.
Is this going to be a resource for people county-wide?
Is it just Seattle?
How many folks will it be able to handle a day?
-I'll let maybe someone else a little closer to the mechanics.
I think the question really is,
is we are here downtown
and I did talk about the benefit of being downtown.
Is the outreach beyond the city into the county areas?
I haven't really had discussions of that kind.
Daniel, you want to give it a shot?
-You could help here, Richard,
if you want or DESC's medical director Dr. Richard Waters
is a key participant in the planning for this.
But maybe something about the volume
that we're expecting to see and that -- Would be okay?
-Yeah, the question really gets at is,
Is this going to be sufficient?
With the volume of overdoses, that's unclear.
We're going to serve as many people as we can.
This space is going to have 10 recliners.
During day hours,
we will likely see a large number of clients
who are walking in, engaging with our staff,
having conversations about medication treatments,
having conversations about harm reduction,
or coming back for follow-up, for a repeat, say,
monthly injection of a medication treatment,
or to just check in.
We estimate that we may serve up to 20, 25,
possibly more clients per day.
In terms of the question about geography,
no one is going to be turned away
because they live in a different zip code or a different city.
Whether someone who overdoses far away from here
wants to travel to come here,
perhaps in a different place where they're not used to,
that's going to be their call ultimately.
I think what is clear is, if this works, this is --
we hope this is replicable
and if it's replicable we can scale it.
-I thought that was all the questions, but I guess not.
Gannon?
-Getting back to the -- to the question I had before,
which is what comes next,
and you kind of acknowledged that that's an open question
and it might not be sufficient.
I was wondering if you can say more about
how you sustain whatever progress you make in this space.
-A significant portion of people
who are going to be cared for here,
we anticipate are going to
be currently experiencing homelessness.
And to generate true stability,
people are going to need a place to stay that is stable for them
and where they can further benefit from the treatment
that may be beginning here in this location.
Some of the medications that are being talked about here
have the advantage of acting over a long period of time
when it's in somebody's system,
and so people will have some amount of protection
even if they are back out on the street.
But it's very important to me
that as we're going through the process
of getting the construction done here and opening this place,
that we are also working on finding more of those places
where people are going to be able to go stay
after they're leaving here
if they don't have their own place to be.
And we've got some ideas about that,
but that's what they are at this moment, they're ideas.
There are existing shelter and emergency housing programs
in the community, of course, that are all occupied.
But some ideas could include some prioritization
in those programs and creation of more programs like those,
I think is going to be essential.
-Dr. Woolworth may have something to add --
-No.
-You're good? Okay, thanks, Doctor.
Yes, Erica.
-This is a question for one of the DESC or ETS folks.
So you were talking about, you know,
having a treatment place for people to go after this,
but for people who are not ready to enter that stage,
can you talk a little bit about,
somebody mentioned the mobile medical
or the mobile methadone van,
what sort of induction is going to happen here
in terms of medication?
-Dr. Waters could talk about that,
and maybe also Dr. Woolworth.
A lot of doctors up here.
-And certainly would invite ETS to come up as well.
Two medications are most useful at reducing cravings.
You heard a number of speakers highlight this.
Buprenorphine comes in a daily form
that you can put under the tongue
or a monthly form that's injected under the skin,
and methadone taken as a daily dose.
For individuals who are interested in methadone,
we will be able to start them on methadone for up to three days.
They could come back, it's a 23-hour center,
but they could come back every day for a subsequent dose.
After that, due to federal regulations,
they would need to transition
to a federally-certified opioid treatment program,
such as Evergreen Treatment Services, for ongoing care.
We -- our goal is working with researchers from UW,
working with partners, with the methadone clinics,
working with other partners
who are using medication treatments in the community.
Our goal is to try
and innovate to get folks to a therapeutic dose
of these medications as quickly as possible
and as safely as possible.
-Yeah, I'm a doctor with a P, not an M.
You definitely don't want me prescribing you anything.
So, we can't be doing the same things over and over again
and expect different results.
And so part of what we're doing at Evergreen Treatment Services,
thanks to the city, thanks to the county,
is we are investing in a fleet of mobile medication units.
I talked about the second one will be on the street in July.
We just, thanks to the county, ordered another one yesterday
that will be out later this fall.
And the first building
we will construct on our health and recovery
campus will be what looks like a fire station,
where we will house our mobile methadone units
that each day will go out into the community
and take medication to where people are.
Because the bricks and mortar approach,
expecting folks who are living unsheltered
who may be transportation limited,
may be technologically limited,
to come to a fixed location can't be the only strategy
we're investing in to address community health.
And so what you'll see from us will be a much more adaptive,
flexible, and mobile approach to taking medication out to
where people are.
-Sir?
-What is the anticipated timeline?
-Timeline.
-Many details to be worked out here,
but should things go according to where we think they can go,
we could be under construction in this facility in September,
with an opening in March of next year.
-Obviously not a politician.
He didn't give himself any wiggle room.
-Mayor, you recently helped out the migrants
that were living up on Capitol Hill.
They were saying they were given 56 days by the city --
-56 days? -56 days in the hotel.
And now they're saying that the city's gone back on that.
They have a week to find more funding.
Can you tell us anything about that?
-Yeah, and I'm going to --
Yes, and thank you, Tanya, for all your leadership.
Tanya, do you want to help out --
help your Mayor a little bit?
Let me just say this.
The asylum seekers situation is very,
very challenging for the city, for the county,
for the state, for multiple counties.
It's not a City of Seattle issue.
I need to make that clear.
The state did appropriate a budget to work
on a statewide strategy, and we are resource-strained as a city.
We have people that we're trying to help,
as evidenced by the press conference today.
We are working around the clock.
Literally, I have staff at Powell Barnett Park
sometimes 8:00, 9:00, 10:00.
We're on conference calls all day trying to get people shelter
and perhaps a pathway to a work permit.
But I think it's unfair
for Seattle to be the only city in this great state
to have to address this issue.
So in my conversations --
and, David, I know we're going to talk more about this --
in my conversations when I'm talking to the Governor,
as I did two nights ago and our staff,
I'm trying to make sure --
and I've talked to the other mayors in different cities.
How do we address it collectively?
And so I'm proud of the leadership
that my team has shown in this space.
But it's tough work,
and I've talked to other mayors in other cities
about how they're dealing with it as well,
from Denver to New York and others.
This is a challenge for our country,
and our federal government needs to step up as well.
But we're doing the best we could, and I don't know, Tanya,
you don't have to add anything but if you want to, please do.
-I would love to add something.
-Okay. -And so I was behind the sign.
Who was the person who asked the question?
-I was. -Okay, great.
Thank you so much for the question.
It's a complicated situation,
and there are a lot of people involved.
So we've got the families,
as well as business owners, the hotels.
There are lots of well-intended folks on the ground
who are providing services and volunteering,
as well as community-based organizations who are involved.
I will say that there's a lot of hearsay as well as confusion.
And I can definitively tell you
and confirm that the city is committed
to offering a certain level of support.
And so that two months that we've committed to is in place.
And so just -- we have been communicating that.
Now, where they are staying,
it also depends on the well-being of the families,
and so we'll be confirming that as well.
But right now they're stable.
We were committed for the two months.
June 30th is where checkout would be,
July 1st is what we're committed to.
And so it's really important.
The reason why I'm very passionate about this is
because can you imagine having to be concerned again
with all of these repeated responses.
And so please help me spread the word
that the city is standing with the families until that time
and we hope to have some other solutions come
online thereafter. -Thank you, Tanya.
And with that, I'm not going to take any more questions.
Thank you for being here, and again,
let's give ourselves a hand.
[ Speaking indistinctly ]
[ Applause ]
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]