The City of Springfield, OH: Collaborative efforts among MHRB and McKinley Hall to increase access to opportunity for justice involved individuals

The City of Springfield, Ohio is the applicant and fiscal agent for a COSSAP Category 1b award of $1,300,000 for a 3-year project in partnership with the Mental Health Recovery Board, local behavioral authority serving Clark County, OH (population 136,000).  The Community Development Department will serve as the administrative lead for the City of Springfield, in partnership with Mental Health Recovery Board and McKinley Hall.  Nearly half the county population is concentrated in Springfield’s four federally designated Qualified Opportunity Zones. The Recovery Resource & Community Advocacy Project meets priority consideration 1A (page 9 of solicitation) by advancing racial equity, supporting underserved and marginalized communities. African Americans comprise 9% of the count, but at least 18% of Springfield residents, nearly a quarter of whom live in poverty and15% are disabled. The Black community is disproportionately impacted by incarceration, high rates of homelessness, and overdose fatality (in Ohio, Black males had the highest rate of overdose death in 2020). Clark County’s overdose fatality rate has consistently been one of the highest in Ohio, but is currently climbing, even as rates decrease in other parts of the state, with current rates at 61.0 (per 100,000). The project expands medication-friendly recovery housing, culturally responsive peer support, SUD treatment inside the jail, and increases re-entry access to MAT and naloxone. The project includes gender-responsive treatment for women in jail, the first recovery housing for women and access to MAT. The project will also educate and advocate among community and justice agencies for the legal right to continue MOUDs in custody and to bring methadone into the jail for pregnant women. Advocacy and empowerment training is also one of the service deliverables for project participants, with Legal Action Center’s Know Your Rights-MAT presentations, harm reduction, ending race and gender-based health disparities, women’s empowerment training, and MAT anti-stigma outreach and education.  Almost 30% of funds will support recovery housing, while more than 60% will allow local project partner McKinley Hall to increase the evidenced-based treatment services they currently deliver inside the jail, embedding peers, clinicians, and harm reduction services, and to provide care coordination and MAT upon re-entry.