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Task force focusing on drugs and homelessness

Parker

ELKINS — The Elkins Addiction and Homelessness Task Force gave an update to the Randolph County Commission during its regular meeting at the James Cain Courthouse Annex.

The initiative, which was started by Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco, has been working to put together a list of “action items” in moving forward with the program.

Marco has been working on the Task Force alongside Elkins Police Chief Travis Bennett, Randolph County Sheriff Rob Elbon and Elkins City Councilman Dave Parker, who gave an informational presentation to the commission during the meeting.

“When Mayor Marco started this initiative we really wanted to address the issue of substance abuse and the issue of homelessness, and to gather as much information as we can about what activity we have in our small region, and to address those issues,” Parker said.

“The mayor has asked me to chair that task force, which I am glad to do. Mayor Marco, Sheriff Elbon, Chief Bennett and I are the core group who have been gathering information and trying to formulate some very first action steps.”

Parker told commissioners that three members of the task force traveled to Morgantown this spring to meet with a group that specializes in dealing with such issues.

“We met with two members of WV Peers, which is a peer recovery counseling organization,” he said. “They are very directly linked with WVU, the Mon County Health Department, law enforcement agencies, EMS, and some others. Their work is really remarkable. They function as advocates for people whose lives are really in tatters and they try to help them work through the challenges that they face in terms of housing, clothing, food and medical needs. We were really impressed with these people.”

Parker said he and Marco have also sat in on some Zoom meetings with the group and that they meet with a whole constellation of organizations, including law enforcement and medical professionals, and communicate about what they need to do to get things accomplished. He said that meeting with the groups and sitting in on their meetings has helped the Task Force put together its action plan.

The first action item is to have a good communications network. Parker said the Task Force needs to have a consistent and effective communications network in order for the program to work.

Second on the list is supporting the development of a peer counseling network, which he feels is very critical to the project. He said law enforcement, emergency squad workers and others need to be able to get in touch with a counselor when one is needed.

The third action item that the task force is working on is to encourage and support a significant expansion of treatment facilities in the immediate region. Parker said there needs to be a local facility that someone can go to when they need help, rather than having to send them to Clarksburg and other locations.

The third action item is creating a database that will help the Task Force understand the real scope of the challenges that they face. He said Jennifer Griggs from the Randolph County Housing Authority is helping the Task Force put that database together.

“We’re going to need to know what our numbers really look like,” Parker said. “We are going to be relying on EPD, the Sheriff’s Office, EMS and Davis Health Systems to get the data that we need. That way we have an idea of how many lives are directly affected.”

The fifth and final action item is to form a coalition of others who can help provide input into what needs to be done. Parker said the Task Force needs others from various professional fields to share their knowledge of certain situations.

“We cannot arrest our way out of the problem of substance abuse and addictions,” Parker said. “Chief Bennett and Sheriff Elbon feel the same way and we have to begin to do the reclamation of human lives as best as we can do that. But just arresting everybody all the time is not going to solve the problem. And at the same time, enforcement is a critical part of this.”

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