The
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe plans to open a $20 million medication-assisted treatment facility in Sequim, Washington, provided it can overcome local opposition.
The tribe plans to offer inpatient psychiatric evaluation and substance abuse treatment at a 15,000-square-foot building that could expand to 25,000 square-feet.. The goal at the Healing Campus is to help address the opioid crisis in the community, Chairman Ron Allen said in a recent opinion.
Our tribe’s intention is to build a clinic that addresses this problem and serves the health care needs of the North Olympic Peninsula community, becoming a place for healing, a place that helps patients become healthy and which will be a vibrant part of our communities," Allen wrote in
The Peninsula Daily News.
Tonight we had a public meeting with our City Council about the proposed MAT treatment center. While there are many...
Posted by Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce on Monday, July 29, 2019
But some residents are
mobilizing opposition. They believe the facility will attract the wrong people to the city, a charge the tribe disputes.
“The last thing we want to do is make it unsafe for folks in Sequim,” Brent Simcosky, the tribe's health services director, said a
special city council meeting on Monday, The Peninsula Daily News reported.
About 500 people attended the meeting, the paper reported. Of the 50 people who spoke, most appeared to be opposed to the facility.
“We don’t need this huge thing. This is about profit. We’re begging you to stop this before it gets started,” one resident said, the paper reported.
The tribe is hosting its own forum on August 8, at the Guy Cole Center in Sequim. A permit from the city's planning commission is needed to move forward, according to news reports.
Read More on the Story
Tribe hopes to ease fears of MAT facility
(The Peninsula Daily News July 31, 2019)
Facility foes fill forum: Community raises alarm about MAT clinic
(The Peninsula Daily News July 31, 2019)
Treatment center discussions set, heating up
(The Sequim Gazette July 24, 2019)
Tribe sets forum for proposed treatment center
(The Peninsula Daily News July 19, 2019)
Sequim community members rally at city against addiction-treatment facility
(The Peninsula Daily News July 12, 2019)
An Opinion
Chairman Ron Allen of Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe:
Medication-assisted treatment clinic plans described
(The Peninsula Daily News July 22, 2019)
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