Department of Human Services

County to accept state grant to cover long-term treatment plans for seniors leaving psychiatric hospitals

By Jo DeVoe
Arlington County Dept. of Human Services headquarters at Sequoia Plaza (staff photo)

Arlington County is slated to accept a $95,000 grant to place two older adults with serious mental illnesses in community-based treatment once they leave state psychiatric hospitals.

The money will pay for housing costs, medications, transportation, or other associated costs as part of their treatment plans.

Their discharge, treatment and funding plans are approved by Arlington’s Community Services Board. These county-appointed community members oversee how the county Dept. of Human Services provides services to people with mental health challenges, developmental disabilities and substance use disorder.

The one-time grant funds come from the Virginia Dept. of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Not having this grant would mean longer wait times for these two individuals set to leave a state hospital, says DHS spokesman Kurt Larrick.

“If we did not have this funding available right now, they would need to wait until a slot in the [Regional Older Adults Facility Mental Health Support Team (RAFT) program] became available or clinical staff identified another option,” Larrick said.

RAFT is a grant-funded program that discharges older adults from psychiatric hospitals to long-term care and, where possible, diverts them from hospitals in the first place. Arlington County DHS manages it for Northern Virginia, says Larrick, and partners with assisted living and nursing home facilities throughout the region.

The 10-person team works to provide community treatment options to people ages 65 and older who have a diagnosis of serious mental illness or dementia and who either have been hospitalized in a psychiatric facility or are at risk of hospitalization.

It served 106 clients last fiscal year, up from 73 the year prior, a 45% increase attributed to the launch of a dementia program in January 2023. Through this program, the team helps ensure people with dementia can live at home or with a caregiver by providing specialized dementia training to caregivers.

The team also provides on-call support to assisted living and nursing home facilities to prevent psychiatric hospitalizations or oversee discharge when a client is hospitalized.

RAFT has a 90% satisfaction rate among clients and partnering organizations, according to a recent survey, in which several people shared their gratitude for the program and its staff.

Each year, RAFT receives $500,000 from DBHDS. While the program faces budget pressures, due to factors such as inflation, Larrick says running the program remains tenable.

Individuals who receive treatment through RAFT are asked to contribute what they can to their care, he said. To keep costs down, the program also leverages community partnerships and other resources for older adults.

Arlington is close to launching a new call center to divert people in mental health crises from jail

By Jo DeVoe
Arlington 911 dispatcher at the county’s Emergency Communications Center, in 2021 (via Arlington County)

The next year will see some important steps forward as Arlington County looks to uncouple law enforcement from its response to homelessness and behavioral health crises.

In 2024, the county will implement new protocols and a call system to ensure people experiencing behavioral health crises — due to a mental illness, substance use disorder or disability — receive services rather than get arrested and jailed.

The coordinator of the forthcoming Marcus Alert system, Tiffany Jones, provided the update during an Arlington Committee of 100 forum last week, adding that more details will emerge during the implementation stage.

“The main purpose is to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity, accessibility to services and is treated with dignity and respect and given the proper services that they need to thrive,” Jones said. “However, there is a specific mission to increase the availability of and access to racially responsive crisis supports — so, in short, to target the BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] community.”

The system comes from the Marcus-David Peters Act, which was signed into law in late 2020 and is named for Marcus-David Peters, a Black, 24-year-old biology teacher who was killed by a police officer in 2018 in Richmond while experiencing a mental health crisis.

Once operational, the system will transfer people who call 911 or 988, the national suicide and mental health crisis hotline, to a regional call center. There, staff determine whether to de-escalate the situation over the phone, dispatch a mobile crisis unit or send specially trained law enforcement.

“Our emergency communications center partners have been doing a wonderful job in getting trained on mental health, psychotic disorders, substance use, suicide prevention, trauma-informed care: various different topics that will help them learn how to assess and manage and transfer calls when they receive Marcus Alert-type calls,” Jones said.

The regional crisis call center is also building mobile crisis teams, Jones said, noting more information on these teams will come out at the time of implementation in December.

“Arlington County and the police department are well ahead of what the state protocols are for the Marcus Alert implementation that we’re working towards in 2024,” ACPD Community Engagement Division Supervisor Lt. Steve Proud said.

The state required localities to ready implementation plans by the summer of 2022. However, localities have until 2028 to stand up a Marcus Alert system.

So far, five localities within each region of the state have operating programs, according to the Virginia Dept. of Behavioral Health and Development Services:

  • Western: Madison and Fauquier counties, plus Warrenton and Culpeper
  • Northern: Prince William County
  • Southwest: Bristol and Washington County
  • Central: Richmond
  • Southeast: Virginia Beach

Jones had another big announcement last week related to the county’s “Mobile Outreach Support Team.”

“When we implement the funding that we will get from the state [for Marcus Alert], we’re going to expand our MOST team due to how effective they have been in the community and pouring into our community members,” she said. “So we’ll be able to have new team with a new van, and expanding hours of operation as well.”

MOST launched this summer and comprises licensed clinician, a peer recovery specialist and an outreach worker from the Dept. of Human Services. Between 1-9 p.m., they respond to referral calls in a retrofitted van equipped with everything from a defibrillator to Narcan and fentanyl test strips.

The vehicle was funded through a 2-year, $390,000 federal grant.

Mobile Outreach Support Team coordinator Michael Keen shows Rep. Don Beyer the county’s behavioral health crisis response van launched last month (staff photo by James Jarvis)

MOST Coordinator Michael Keen said he conducts homeless outreach while shelters, the public and the police department refer individuals to him, so he can introduce them to county programs. He says he has received 45-55 referrals per month in the last two months, up from an average of 15-20, largely from police.

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A program that diverted people from jail is fizzling without a coordinator

By Jo DeVoe
Jail entrance at the Arlington County Detention Facility (file photo)

A one-woman show ran one of the county programs that diverts people from jail.

Her departure this summer has left a hole in the county’s series of initiatives that keep defendants out of jail, reduce their time in the detention facility or improve their chances of not reoffending once they leave.

Bond Diversion works with criminal defendants who the Arlington Dept. of Human Services (DHS), attorneys and judges determined would fare better waiting for court appearances in stable housing and receiving community-based medical treatment. In many cases, participants had mental illnesses and committed minor misdemeanors.

DHS oversees the program as well as many of the services used by defendants who go through the program. The department is recruiting for a replacement but is up against a regional shortage of licensed behavioral health specialists, says DHS spokesman Kurt Larrick.

“[Bond Diversion] is basically on hold, though both the Forensic Diversion team and jail-based team are identifying opportunities to divert people and doing so when possible,” says Larrick, noting the position, which pays between $92,000 and $140,000, has been offered to two people who have declined.

Meanwhile, more people with mental illnesses are being booked in the Arlington County Detention Facility even as Arlington County is trying to disentangle law enforcement from mental health issues. Since 2020’s widespread calls for police reforms, the county has taken some steps to create community-based services that do not involve the criminal-legal system.

Arlington’s top prosecutor and chief public defender esteemed the last Bond Diversion coordinator for providing high-quality re-entry planning. They said these plans instilled confidence among prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges that defendants released from the jail would show up to court, stick with their treatment plans and not reoffend in the long term.

“[Bond Diversion] allowed us to have creative solutions that allowed us to not criminalize mentally ill people,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti. “It allowed us to spend our resources in areas where you really needed to prosecute.”

Without it, the jail — already under scrutiny for the deaths of inmates, some of whom were homeless and booked on trespassing charges — has become home to people with mental illnesses who are held without bond or on bonds they cannot afford to pay. Although the jail has clinicians to help these inmates, this trend worries Dehghani-Tafti.

“We are warehousing mentally ill people in our jail because we do not have a functioning Bond Diversion program,” she said.

When it worked well, the program was “really cutting-edge diversion,” Chief Public Defender Brad Haywood said.

Now, his office is shouldering a lot of the reentry planning previously overseen by the Bond Diversion coordinator. Two paralegals, who normally review body-camera footage and prepare legal filings, are instead helping the office’s mitigation specialist draft reentry plans.

“Even that’s not enough,” Haywood said. “My office is too taxed to do reentry planning and someone at DHS is better equipped to access services they provide.”

Bond Diversion: One of several jail ‘off-ramps’  

Arlington has several “off-ramps” through which the court-involved can be diverted from the detention facility.

Some off-ramps are put into motion the moment law enforcement could be involved or does get involved. The Crisis Intervention Team, for instance, trains law enforcement in better responses to people with mental illnesses and encourages them to work with DHS to find mental health professionals or other services in lieu of incarceration.

Police who do arrest people bring them to the jail where they go before magistrates who determines — as part of the Magistrate’s Post-Booking Project — if they should stay in jail or be released for behavioral health interventions.

Bond Diversion is the next step.

If someone is held without bond or on a bond they cannot pay, they are arraigned before a district court judge. If applicable, Haywood says, the public defender’s office will be appointed and shortly after, will request that the client be released until their court date. For some clients, his office might request a Bond Diversion plan.

Other times, the referral may come from the prosecutor. Or the judge may be sympathetic to releasing the defendant because the crime was minor, but may feel uncomfortable doing so without a housing and medication plan in place, Haywood said.

Throughout this process, members of the 14-person, jail-based forensic diversion team are screening the mental health of defendants to determine what kind of behavioral health interventions they should get — whether in the jail or upon their release.

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Behavioral health specialists could be in Arlington high schools this winter

By Jo DeVoe
The Arlington Public Schools Syphax Education Center (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

High school-based behavioral health services could be in place by November or December of this year, according to the county.

In the wake of a mini-rash of student deaths earlier this year that included the fatal overdose of a 14-year-old Wakefield High School student, Arlington Public Schools and the county government began devising a joint response to the twin epidemics of substance use and mental health issues.

This included plans to place county therapists in schools. The intent was to make it easier for students to get mental health support from the Dept. of Human Services, overseen by Arlington’s Community Services Board, or CSB.

“Both APS and the County seek to reduce barriers for children and youth to receive services from the Arlington CSB,” a county report says. “This agreement will allow for the provision of outpatient services in the school setting rather than the office setting. It will significantly reduce or eliminate the need for transportation and potential family time away from work.”

As part of the 2024 budget adopted earlier this year, the Arlington County Board approved $520,000 in ongoing funding and four full-time employees for this program. Recruitment of the four employees is underway, per the report.

The county notes the program responds to calls from the community for more services to youth.

“Expanded behavioral health services for children and youth has been identified as a community need by both Arlington Public Schools and the County through ongoing dialogues with stakeholders,” the report says.

The report emphasizes that the School-Based Behavioral Health Program cannot be the single, defining solution for struggling teens.

It “supplements and reinforces families’ efforts to enhance youth mental wellness by teaching and coaching youth to develop coping skills for managing emotional challenges in order to improve functioning at home, school, and in the community,” the report says.

The county and APS spent the summer hammering out a memorandum of understanding permitting the DHS Children’s Behavioral Health Bureau to provide behavioral health support in high schools. This weekend, the County Board is set to ratify the document.

Once the four behavioral health specialists are hired and finish mandatory training, they could begin practicing in Arlington high schools in November or December, the report says.

County’s mobile behavioral health crisis team tackles rising homelessness amid D.C. shelter closures

By James Jarvis
1/3

In its first month of operation, Arlington County’s mobile behavioral health response team has been busy responding to calls.

Most of these calls — which range from welfare checks to mental health emergencies and drug overdoses — involve people who are homeless, officials say. It’s a trend they attribute to the recent closures of shelters in D.C.

“There’s been a surge of homelessness in Arlington County because of the closures in D.C.,” says Grace Guerrero, senior clinical psychologist and mental health supervisor, noting many are leaving D.C. for Arlington as well as other parts of Northern Virginia and southern Maryland.

“We’ll see what unfolds,” she added. “But we have seen those upticks.”

During a media event on Thursday, Arlington County’s “Mobile Outreach Support Team” (MOST) showed off its retrofitted van, stocked with non-perishable food, water, a defibrillator, clothes, hygiene items, Narcan and fentanyl test strips.

The vehicle was funded through a 2-year, $390,000 federal grant — secured with help from Rep. Don Beyer — in an effort to divert police involvement from calls involving mental health crises, substance abuse or domestic violence.

The team comprises a licensed clinician, a peer recovery specialist and an outreach worker from the Dept. of Human Services. They will triage a situation on-site and provide peer support and conflict resolution. MOST also works with medical and behavioral health services to ensure people receive the appropriate care.

The MOST team receives about 20-35 calls per week, largely between the van’s operational hours of 1-9 p.m. Once the van arrives, most of the time, people accept the team’s help, which Guerrero noted can prevent situations from escalating and resulting in injuries or death.

Guerrero says she is unsure if MOST has significantly reduced police involvement in mental health crises at this point. That is in part because emergency responders are still, typically, the first to arrive on scene, and will call the MOST team for specialized assistance.

To further reduce police involvement in these calls, she is looking to develop an enhanced “decision tree” to help police assess when their presence may not be necessary.

“I don’t know that we’ve done yet the curbing of [police] going to these [situations] unless we self-deploy… But right now, in these first five weeks, I would say that probably allowed [police] to go back into service sooner, much sooner,” she said.

Reducing law enforcement involvement in mental health crises is a goal advanced by the Police Practices Work Group, which was convened to suggest reforms to the Arlington County Police Department after the death of George Floyd.

ACPD too has noted the increased entanglement of police officers in mental health emergencies and the officer burnout to which it is contributing. Like the police department, the jail also is seeing an influx of inmates with mental health disorders as well as homeless inmates.

This includes Abonesh Woldegeorges, a 73-year-old woman who died in the jail last month. Her death prompted some in and outside local government to renew pressure on the county to address the role of law enforcement in tackling homelessness and mental health emergencies.

County to launch new behavioral health crisis response team

By ARLnow.com
1/2

Next week a new county government van will hit the streets, providing on-the-scene behavioral health services.

The van will be operated by a new “Mobile Outreach Support Team,” consisting of “a licensed behavioral health clinician, a certified peer recovery specialist, and an outreach worker” from Arlington’s Dept. of Human Services.

The team will work alongside emergency responders, providing “alternatives to incarceration for those engaged in ‘nuisance crimes/behaviors,'” while decreasing hospital emergency room and psychiatric hospital admissions.

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd in 2020, a key demand of the “defund the police” movement was reducing the police budget in order to fund additional social services. While Arlington has, in fact, increased its police budget, the new outreach team is at least a partial realization of the vision for diverting some police responses to behavioral health clinicians, as suggested by the county’s Police Practices Work Group.

More, below, from a county press release.

The Mobile Outreach Support Team (MOST) is the latest addition to the County’s expanding network of care for people experiencing mental health and substance use issues.

The MOST program is coordinated by the Department of Human Services (DHS), in partnership with the Arlington County Police Department, Arlington County Fire Department, and the Emergency Communications Center, which operates the County’s 9-1-1 call center.

MOST launches July 31, 2023, and will operate Monday through Friday, between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The goals of MOST include increasing access to mental health and substance use treatment and decreasing the role of non-clinical first responders in addressing mental health needs. The program also aims to provide alternatives to incarceration for those engaged in “nuisance crimes/behaviors,” and decrease emergency department and psychiatric hospital admissions.

“MOST is an important expansion of our efforts to ensure that people in crisis can get the right help when and where they need it,” said DHS Director Anita Friedman. “MOST team members are specialists who will be out in the community. That includes responding to 9-1-1 calls that have a behavioral health need, conducting outreach to people who are homeless, and working closely with our partners in Police and Fire to support them in the field when needed.”

About MOST

The National Guidelines for Crisis Care from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) emphasize the importance of offering mobile, community-based intervention to individuals in need wherever they are, including at home, work, or anywhere else in the community where the person is experiencing a crisis.

The MOST team – which includes a licensed behavioral health clinician, a certified peer recovery specialist, and an outreach worker – will provide a range of essential functions that include:

  • Triage/screening, including explicit screening for suicidality
  • Assessment
  • De-escalation/resolution
  • Peer support
  • Coordination with medical and behavioral health services
  • Crisis planning and follow-up

Arlington’s MOST will also be able to distribute harm reduction tools such as Narcan and fentanyl test strips, connect people who are homeless to shelters and other services, and transport people from the scene to providers where they can receive assistance.

Mobile Unit

The MOST has a specially equipped van (a County fleet vehicle modified using federal grant funds) to provide services in the community. The van is connected to the County’s computer-aided dispatch system and an on-board computer allows MOST clinicians to use DHS’s electronic health record system. The vehicle includes supplies for harm reduction, non-perishable food, water, a defibrillator, clothing, and hygiene items.

Police investigating man’s death near county offices

By ARLnow.com
File photo

Arlington County police are investigating the death of a man near the county office complex at Sequoia Plaza.

A family member called 911 around 4 p.m., reporting that he was attempting to kill himself, according to initial reports. He was found dead by arriving police and firefighters, in an outdoor area near the Arlington Dept. of Human Services offices and a county-run mental health facility.

“At approximately 4:04 p.m., police were dispatched to the 2100 block of Washington Boulevard,” ACPD spokeswoman Ashley Savage said. “Upon arrival, an adult male was located deceased. ACPD is conducting a death investigation and based on the preliminary investigation, the death does not appear suspicious and there is no apparent ongoing threat to the public. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine cause and manner of death.”

A ramp between Washington Blvd and Route 50 was closed during part of the investigation.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger of self-harm, call 911. You can also call the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, Arlington Dept. of Human Services’ emergency services line at 703-228-5160, or CrisisLink at 703-527-4077.

Arlington County celebrates newly renovated center aimed at diverting psychiatric crises from hospital

By Jo DeVoe
1/5

Local and state officials gathered today to celebrate the grand opening of a place where people can go if they are experiencing a behavioral health crisis.

The newly renovated Crisis Intervention Center (CIC) provides behavioral healthcare services in a community-based setting to individuals experiencing a psychiatric crisis. The location at 2120 Washington Blvd is open 24/7, 365 days per year, to people of all ages.

With the center, Arlington County aims to divert people in crisis from the emergency room and away from interactions with law enforcement — an imperfect system that was straining Arlington County Police Department, the Sheriff’s Office and local hospitals.

It comes as, in Arlington, nearly 10% of adult residents are reporting frequent mental distress, compared to 13% in all of Virginia, according to Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey. In the wake of the pandemic, Northern Virginia saw a four-fold increase of adults reporting the onset of anxiety and depression symptoms, as well as one in 10 youth in the region contemplating suicide last year.

“It was critical for us to figure out, to pivot as soon as we could possibly pivot, to figure out alternatives to psychiatric hospitalizations,” Arlington County Dept. of Human Services Deputy Director Deborah Warren said during the ceremony today.

“People in a behavioral health crisis were being brought to the ER where, once they were assessed by a certified [clinician] and got a temporary detention order, they would languish for sometimes a week, or 10 days at a time — not getting care — handcuffed to a gurney and guarded by police or sheriff,” she continued.

Imagine, she continued, being paranoid, hearing voices or being significantly depressed and going to the hospital with its bright lights and cacophony of noises.

“It’s not trauma-informed,” she said. “Maybe all they need is to talk to somebody. Maybe they just need to be in a calming space and de-escalate, instead of a very stressful environment in the hospital.”

The grand opening of the CIC celebrated new ways the county Dept. of Human Services has been authorized to help people.

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Arlington firefighters could soon give away Narcan to bystanders at an overdose scene

By Jo DeVoe
A training session for how to administer naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, to reverse opioid overdoses in 2019 (staff photo)

When Arlington firefighters respond to drug overdoses, they could soon start bringing along enough doses of an opioid-reversal drug to leave some behind.

This is part of a statewide effort “to prevent fatal overdoses and increase community access” to the nasal spray Narcan, one form of the reversal drug called naloxone.

On Saturday, the Arlington County Board is set to approve a memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Dept. of Health to get more state-provided Narcan into the hands of the public.

Through the Narcan “Leave Behind” Program, VDH has authorized EMS personnel, firefighters, law enforcement officers, school nurses and others to give Narcan doses to overdose witnesses, as well as to the family and friends of people who use drugs.

The infusion of Narcan is part of national, state and local a focus on reducing harm to drug users. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved Narcan for over-the-counter use.

Some advocates worried this would not do enough to bring the price of Narcan down. Others criticized the FDA for prioritizing the more costly nasal spray over the less-expensive generic version that is injected and said government-led, pharmacy-based distribution efforts do not reach the people who need it.

That is where the distribution of Narcan at the scene of an overdose could be effective, coupled with other harm reduction efforts led by Arlington’s Addiction Recovery Initiative, including fentanyl test strip and medicine deactivation bag distribution.

Higher-ups in the Arlington County Dept. of Human Services previously connected these efforts to a drop in fatal overdoses since 2021.

Fatal overdoses versus harm reduction (courtesy of AARI)

There are also new opportunities to learn how to administer the overdose reversal drug, which operates similar to a nasal spray.

Community members can get trained in using naloxone on June 7 at noon and 7 p.m. on Zoom. People can register by emailing [email protected] and can request naloxone, Fentanyl test strips and medical deactivation bags online.

In-person training and Narcan distribution is available later this month on May 17 and June 21 from 3-6 p.m. at DHS headquarters (2120 Washington Blvd, Room 112). No registration is required for in-person training.

As of last Wednesday, Arlington County police had investigated 55 incidents involving opioids this year, per county data. Since Jan. 1, 2023, there have been 20 opioid overdoses, of which six were fatal, according to ACPD.

While the overall fatality rate is dropping, Arlington is seeing elevated opioid use among youth, who gravitate toward counterfeit pressed pills that are increasingly laced with fentanyl.

There was a fatal overdose at Wakefield High School in January followed by a near-fatal teen overdose in a Ballston parking garage in March. The quick application of Narcan by first responders helped to save those who overdosed in the parking garage.

Those incidents revealed cracks in treatment options for youth in Arlington that are beginning to be remedied.

Some treatment options, like a new rehab facility, will take a while to open. In the meantime, Arlington Public Schools and the county have put money toward more education, substance abuse counselors, after-school programming.

After the FDA approved Narcan for over-the-counter use, APS announced it would be advancing plans to allow students to carry the nasal spray in schools, with parent permission and training, as early as May 26, WTOP reported.

Narcan is also stocked in emergency boxes throughout middle and high schools.

More than 1,000 people received homelessness services last year in Arlington

By Jo DeVoe
A sleeping bag and roll of toilet paper in an alcove of the elevated walkway in Rosslyn (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Arlington County says it provided assistance to 1,070 people who were experiencing homelessness or at risk of losing housing last year.

This number is five times higher than the number of people found living outside or in a shelter one night in January 2022. One night last winter, as part of the “point-in-time” count, 182 people did not have permanent, stable housing, according to a new report on homelessness in Arlington.

The recently released report says the larger figure more accurately captures the portion of the population experiencing homelessness in Arlington.

In a statement, Arlington County Dept. of Human Services Director Anita Friedman said that, without Covid-era eviction prevention efforts, the number of people who received services would have been higher.

“The total number of individuals served in FY 2022 was almost identical to pre-pandemic levels,” Friedman said. “Without strong eviction prevention efforts, we would have seen many more households upended and in crisis.”

Some $20 million in local, state and federal funding helped more than 3,400 households stave off eviction, according to the county.

The report comes as Arlington County embarks on a goal to bringing homelessness down to what it calls “functional zero” for several specific demographics. That means homelessness is “rare and brief” for a given population, such as young adults, families and survivors of domestic violence.

“For those households that do experience homelessness, it is traumatic, and we remain committed to working alongside them as they return to housing stability,” Friedman said. “We will also continue to address critical gaps, including in the areas of racial equity, immigrant and refugee households, and the aging population.”

Arlington County addresses homelessness through a network of programs and services it calls the Continuum of Care, or CoC. The report says that DHS staff and nonprofit program leaders have spent the last 10 years improving how the CoC prevents homelessness and finds permanent housing for people.

For instance, through the CoC, county and community partners work together to connect people to stable housing, jobs, childcare and emergency financial assistance, and provide behavioral health services to people living on the streets — a service that helped 65 people last year.

What homelessness looks like in Arlington

Of the 1,070 who received services through the CoC, there were:

  • 744 single adults
  • 105 families
  • 36 veterans
  • 74 young people aged 18-24
  • 192 people in “chronic homelessness,” or individuals with a documented disability who have experienced at least 12 months of homelessness in one stretch or at least four times in less than three years

Excluding people in Arlington’s shelter for people escaping domestic violence, run by the nonprofit Doorways, 305 people were served in Arlington shelters. This includes 13 veterans and 25 chronically homeless individuals. The average length of stay was three months.

Meanwhile, the county report says demand for safe housing among domestic violence survivors — including individuals and families — is increasing.

Rising need for safe housing from domestic violence is on the rise (via Arlington County)

While some 165 people received shelter at Doorways, the number of people who called its hotline was much higher: advocates counseled people on domestic and sexual violence during a total of 1,039 calls, per the report. Most of the time, people leaving these situations are women.

“Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness for families, and the leading cause of homelessness for women,” the report says.

Women are also more likely to be at the head of a family experiencing homelessness, per the report. Of the families counted one night in January, women were the adult in the family 95% of the time.

Meanwhile, 78% of homeless individuals were men and 1% identified as transgender.

Gender of people surveyed in the 2022 point-in-time count (via Arlington County)

After student overdose, local addiction treatment facility to resume working with youth

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

Seven years after ending its substance use treatment options for youth, a local facility is poised to resume providing some outpatient services.

National Capital Treatment & Recovery CEO Debby Taylor tells ARLnow that Arlington County approached the center about providing therapeutic services to youth in the county after 14-year-old Sergio Flores fatally overdosed at Wakefield High School. The center has since obtained licensure to provide intensive outpatient and outpatient services and could be ready to debut its programming this spring.

“We had always hoped to get back in adolescent treatment, but we felt that we needed to do just the outpatient services at this point,” she said.

Since Flores died in late January, the county and Arlington Public Schools have mounted a “full court press” to address this issue, Dept. of Human Services Deputy Director Deborah Warren told the Arlington County Board during a joint work session with Arlington Public Schools this past Friday.

“The tragic loss of the 14-year-old has knitted the county and APS in a way we weren’t before,” Warren said. “I’m really impressed with the rapid response and the alignment on the urgency of the problem. We are developing all kinds of innovative ideas for how to help children and adolescents to address the emotional mental health crisis.”

In addition to the forthcoming contract with National Capital Treatment & Recovery, the county is looking to put DHS clinicians in high schools and work with neighboring jurisdictions to open a medicated withdrawal and treatment facility for adolescents. Arlington Addiction Recovery Initiative has ramped up training in the opioid reversal drug naloxone and the distribution of Narcan and fentanyl test strips.

“All staff members will be trained in the use of naloxone by the end of April,” APS Executive Director of Student Services Darrell Sampson told the County Boar. “Naloxone is available on all floors in secondary schools and we are exploring additional mental health education for school staff and high school students.”

Warren said fatalities from overdoses have reduced 40% through AARI’s training and distribution efforts.

“This is literally saving lives,” she said.

The number of fatal overdoses peaked in 2021 and has since decreased dramatically, Suzanne Somerville, the county’s bureau director of residential and specialized clinical services, tells ARLnow.

“AARI believes that it is related to the distribution and accessibility of harm reduction services,” she said. “The county has made a strong push to get Naloxone and Fentanyl Test Strips to anyone who is interested. We tracked the distribution of harm reduction tools and number of overdoses and extrapolate that there is a correlation between the two.”

Fatal overdoses versus harm reduction (courtesy of AARI)

That said, AARI has noticed “a significant increase in younger people overdosing” related to pressed pills, she noted. There have been seven juvenile overdoses, of which one was fatal, seven juvenile Narcan uses and 17 total opioid incidents involving minors.

That is why DHS is focused on filling the gaps in substance use treatment for youth, beginning with National Capital Treatment & Recovery, with which Warren said her department is “on the cusp” of a contract.

“We have significant gaps in our system of care for substance use disorders in kids,” Warren said. “We have really developed these services for adults in the last five to six years, in response to the opioid crisis. We are working hard to develop contracts with vendors to fill in these gaps.”

Taylor anticipates opening in about a month, after finalizing the paperwork and hiring clinicians, preferably those who are bilingual. The county has offered to cover operating costs until the program is accredited and can take insurance reimbursements.

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