Opinion: Use Asheville opioid settlement funds for addiction recovery employment
Mental health practitioners hear a lot: about abuse, assault, loss, addiction, family separation and more. The most distressing issue I run into as a substance use and mental health therapist is how difficult it is for clients with pending legal charges or with felonies to find work. In this day and age when courts charge defendants fines and court fees, my clients are often caught in the Catch-22 of not being able to find work because of their pending charges, and not being able to pay their court fees because they can’t find work. This is made doubly difficult by the fact that our courts will in some cases dismiss pending legal charges for first time offenders if the defendant complies with all court requirements, which includes paying their court fees. They can’t pay their fees without a job, and they can’t find a job until they’ve paid their fees and their charges have been dismissed.
In this economic age when employers face a severe shortage of workers, and everywhere we go we see signs, billboards and ads exclaiming “Join Our Team,” “We’re Hiring,” many local employers just won’t hire applicants with felonies or pending legal charges. Some level of caution is understandable, but these are citizens who rejoin our communities after paying their debt to society. The idea of the criminal justice system is that people do their time or follow the steps the court or probation/parole has set, and return to their communities. We are past the days of putting people in stocks or having them wear a scarlet letter so we can publicly shame them. We know better now —– or I hope we do.
Addiction is an equal-opportunity disease. It does not discriminate by socio-economic status or whether or not someone has legal charges. Just do an internet search on ‘executive rehab’ or ‘luxury rehab’ to see how many upscale rehab centers are designed so executives can stay engaged in their work while in treatment. I’d like to see our WNC employers care as much when hiring their frontline workers as many companies care for their managers and executives.
This post-pandemic time, when much of the stigma of mental health has been reduced and so many people are reaching out for support and counseling, is the perfect time for employers to reconsider their hiring practices for community members who have made mistakes and incurred legal charges. A client distraught due to their inability to find even an entry-level job recently said to me, “How long do you have to pay for a mistake?”
At one point I had two clients with four-year degrees, both in fields with a shortage of workers, and neither one could find even a job at a retail store. One of them stopped showing up for weekly appointments and stopped responding to my emails and texts. I worry about them still. Hopelessness sets in.
Another phenomenon I’ve seen is middle-aged women especially, using methamphetamine to help them maintain their energy to make a living, or to work and raise their children as a single mother. And if their use leads to legal charges, that makes finding any job much harder.
The Citizen Times ran a story last week, "Some of Asheville's $2.7 million in opioid funds proposed for Fire Department program," about how to spend the funding Asheville will get from the opioid settlement money, and one suggestion was made to put those funds towards an addiction outreach program the Asheville Fire Department runs. I encourage the City Council to direct a good chunk of those funds to finding employment for citizens in recovery, helping them re-engage in the community.
Editor: The Citizen Times encourages women to share their voices and opinions
As the ACT article stated, one of the 12 specific strategies that settlement money can be used on includes “programs offering recovery housing/employment support to people in treatment or recovery ...”
City Council members may be unaware of what a challenge those in recovery face finding employment in Asheville and Buncombe County. Perhaps the city can look at its own hiring policies for those with records and those facing legal charges, and see if we’re punishing people twice for their offenses. Or perhaps we need an advocate who reaches out to local employers to encourage them to review their company hiring policies and see the win-win of hiring offenders during this time of unprecedented difficulties employers face with staffing.
WNC employers need workers; qualified offenders need work; the opioid-fund money is there to help. It’s a no-brainer.
Laila Deane is a mental health and addiction counselor in Asheville. She lives in Candler.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Employers should be more open to hiring people after recovery
