Starting in July, a Wilsonville pilot program will give residents struggling with addiction access to a new local resource.

During a work session on Monday, May 19, the City Council agreed to move forward with a one-year program using funds received from national opioid settlements for a local peer support specialist. The role will be filled by someone who has lived experience with addiction and mental health conditions, and is trained to offer support to others who are struggling.

Wilsonville City Attorney Amanda Guile-Hinman said during the work session that the task force recommending the option wanted to spend the settlement money in an “impactful” way and complement addiction support work already being done by Clackamas County, Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue and others.

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel … We don’t want to duplicate work that’s already being done. We want to supplement and support that work,” Guile-Hinman said.

Background on settlements

The funds are given to the city through the state, as part of various settlements by opioid manufacturers, distributors and other parties who were sued for “their alleged roles in causing or contributing to the opioid crisis,” according to a staff report. Statistics from Centers of Disease Control and Prevention included in the report show 727,000 people died from opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2002, and a graph in the report showed the deaths continued to grow with a steep increase in the 2010s.

The deaths occurred after pharmaceutical companies assured medical providers that patients would not become addicted to opioids in the 1990s and providers prescribed the drug at greater rates, the staff report said. Wilsonville and other municipalities in Oregon did not participate in any lawsuits against opioid manufacturers or distributors, but Guile-Hinman explained in the work session that because the city could sue for damages it is eligible to receive funding to settle any potential future lawsuits.

Wilsonville entered an agreement with the state in 2021 to receive funding from the opioid settlements given to Oregon periodically over 18 years, and the city is required to spend the funds within five years of receipt. Guile-Hinman said the city has accrued approximately $130,000 in funds from various opioid settlements, which will be enough to cover the estimated pilot program cost of $123,800.

What the specialist will do

The idea for a peer-support specialist came from the city’s Behavioral Health Specialist Brenda Evans, with support from Wilsonville’s nonprofit service providers. Guile-Hinman said that Evans’ job is meant to be focused on crisis response, but the city is finding that she is being called for those who aren’t in crisis but still need support.

In a statement written in the staff report, Evans supported the idea as a way to help people find community while healing from addiction.

“Peer support specialists have extensive training and lived experience to meet an individual’s needs, where they are at, when other providers can’t reach them in the same capacity,” Evans wrote. “I have been a treatment provider for crisis services the past 12+ years and healing happens in community, not isolation. Through peer support, individuals who are struggling in our community can more successfully gain that step toward healing and recovery.”

Guile-Hinman said during the work session that the peer support specialist will have an office in the space held by Wilsonville Community Sharing, a local nonprofit that provides a number of services and operates the local food bank. The nonprofit is currently located near the Wilsonville Community Center, but Guile-Hinman added that the specialist will be able to move with the nonprofit next year when it relocates to the first floor of an affordable housing complex currently being built in Wilsonville.

Rather than undergoing a competitive hiring process, the city staff recommended contracting with the Portland-based Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon, soon to be renamed The Peer Company, for the one-year pilot project. The organization provides one-on-one peer support throughout the Portland area, and a representative of the city would work with the organization to help recruit the local specialist.

The organization will also track data points to help the council determine if the program has been successful. In the work session the association’s senior director of peer delivered services, Terry Leckron Myers, said each municipality or agency the organization works with requests different data points to determine success, ranging from qualitative responses on how clients are supported to information on the case load of each peer support specialist.

‘Talking to somebody who gets it’

Council members expressed desire to move forward with the pilot program and contracting with Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon during the work session, and the agreement is expected to be approved in June. During the discussion, Mayor Shawn O’Neil and City Councilor Adam Cunningham said they were excited to have peer support services.

“I definitely appreciate your approach of offering just enough to someone so that they understand that they’re talking to somebody who gets it,” Cunningham said to the association representatives during the work session.

While the council members are still determining what data points they wish to be tracked, Councilor Anne Shevlin, a retired nurse, asked for data on the link between substance abuse, mental health and homelessness. She also asked for data on the experiences of those who are addicted to drugs and discover they are pregnant, noting her experience working with infants experiencing withdrawal symptoms after being exposed to drugs in the womb and their families.

“(Working with the infants) gave me such insight into addiction, and how it works with every mother that finds out that she’s pregnant and she’s using … they want to quit. Every day, they want to quit,” Shevlin said.

If all goes according to plan, the council is expected to evaluate the success of the program in early 2026 after the peer support specialist begins work this July. The staff report said the city is currently looking at other funding options to continue keeping the specialist after one year, such as seeking a state grant or working with nearby jurisdictions to share peer support services.

With the city’s general fund projected to face challenges in the future, both O’Neil and Cunningham said they appreciated the potential funding options.

“Going forward we might be able to keep this program off of our general fund and be able to fund it into the future without having to hit our taxpayers directly,” Cunningham said.