Nevada included in new USDA drive to provide more transitional housing for drug recovery
Nevada is participating in a new national initiative to provide transitional housing for rural Americans recovering from substance addiction, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Wednesday.
Announcement of the initiative came on day one of a two-day Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Summit in Las Vegas called by Nevada’s Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.
Vilsack said the new initiative calls for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service to use financing from its Community Facilities program to construct, expand and improve transitional housing facilities for recovering addicts. Nevada’s leadership in drug addiction and its isolated rural communities and tribal populations contributed to the decision to include the state in the program, he said.
Vilsack, who spoke to the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board Wednesday, called opioid addiction an “epidemic” that has a “disproportionate impact” on rural areas.
“In rural areas it’s very difficult for people to acknowledge that they’ve got a problem just because of proximity and closeness and privacy concerns that often are the case in small towns, and if people make the decision to turn their life around and seek treatment oftentimes that treatment is not as readily available as it is in cities,” he said.
.@BrianSandoval explains how the prescription drug abuse summit's recommendations will be taken into consideration pic.twitter.com/8VeFGqTLKH
— Pashtana U. (@pashtana_u) August 31, 2016
The new initiative is designed to complement drug courts that help to keep addicted individuals from incarceration so they can get treatment. Unfortunately, Vilsack said, drug court participants often have no place to stay during their recovery.
“The reality is (drug courts) can’t handle as many people as they have because they can’t find places to physically locate them,” Vilsack said. “There’s no place for them to live.”
Under the new program, the USDA will sell homes it has acquired through foreclosure to qualified nonprofits for conversion to transitional housing in 22 states.
It also will conduct a pilot program in four states — including Nevada — that will allow nonprofits to buy single-family homes for below the market rate for use as transitional housing. The nonprofits would be required to provide support services to help rural residents recover and live independently within two years.
The department also will launch a pilot program in the same four states – Nevada, Missouri, New Hampshire and Vermont – to incentivize owners of multifamily rental properties to rent to people recovering from addiction. Among other things, it would make unsubsidized, vacant units eligible for rental assistance if they are used to house a drug court participant.
Roughly 2 million Americans are addicted to opioids, a class of pain-relieving drugs that includes prescription drugs such as oxycodone and hydrocodone as well as illegal drugs such as heroin.
The drugs have become the subject of national debate and sparked discussions on overuse of prescription drugs, how they are prescribed and access to addiction rehabilitation services.
More than 380 Nevadans died from opioid overdoses last year, Sandoval told the roughly 400 attendees gathered for the summit at the MGM Grand, which continues Thursday.
Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Find @davidsonlvrj on Twitter. Contact Pashtana Usufzy at pusufzy@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @pashtana_u on Twitter.
