LYNN — Opioid Prevention Specialist Candice McClory gave the City Council an update on the Opioid Working Group’s progress during the council’s meeting Tuesday night.
McClory said 205 people participated in a targeted survey the group had distributed and that the respondents were representative of different demographics in the city.
She said some of the largest barriers people who answered the survey had to accessing treatment were not knowing how to access it, feeling stigmatized for accessing it, and not being able to understand the services due to language barriers.
Another barrier to accessing treatment was dealing with child-care assistance and the cost of treatment, McClory added.
McClory said the next step for the committee is to release a notice of a $250,000 funding availability to small local organizations. Organizations will be able to apply for the funding to enhance their recovery services and “get creative” with non-traditional harm-reduction efforts, she said.
“I personally don’t believe that we should let people hit rock bottom. I think we should support them through that whole journey, and that is what we’re hoping we can do with this money,” McClory said. “That’s what these grants are going to do. It’s going to open up so that these programs can apply to get money to do more of the things that they already do.”
She added that a great number of survey responses urged the working group to spend the funds on directly helping people who are affected by opioid addiction and need access to sober houses.
As a result, McClory said a possible use of the funds could be to support the work that is already being done in the sober houses.
McClory said the committee is also working on installing a harm-reduction vending machine in one of two potential locations downtown, either by Centerboard or under a bridge near the Eastern Bank on Market Street.
She said the goal is to put the vending machine somewhere that is intentionally public, but also hidden.
“We don’t want people to feel stigmatized when they go to the machine,” she said.
She said the machine would include Narcan, sharps containers, hygiene kits, fentanyl test strips, water bottles, socks, sexual-health items, and resource pamphlets.
The machine would also record how often each item is dispensed to ensure the funds for the machine are being distributed appropriately, McClory added.
“That data is really great because if we’re seeing that Lynn is having a serious hygiene crisis where everybody is accessing this machine consistently for hygiene, that’s something that we can look into,” she said.
McClory said another step for the working group will be to increase the distribution of informational materials to community members.
The working group was established in 2023 by Mayor Jared Nicholson to ensure the funds from the state’s opioid settlements were distributed back to the community.
To date, the group has established community naloxone boxes across downtown, which have distributed 150 kits, according to McClory. It has also added an Opioid Settlement Fund page to the city’s website.
