How Durham Will Spend $1 Million in Opioid Settlement Funds

View This Email In Your Browser

The INDY is covering local layoffs and furloughs as a result of federal funding cuts. If you or someone you know has been affected, we’d like to hear from you. Send us an email at [email protected].

Good morning, readers.

Since 2023, Durham Tech, Duke Health and the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition have been partnering together to deploy mobile treatment units to Durham communities. Through Project MAPS, they provide “evidence-based medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, primary care services, and comprehensive harm reduction, including naloxone for overdose prevention and syringe services,” among other benefits.

INDY’s Justin Laidlaw reports that Project MAPS is poised to get a more than $200,000 infusion from the City of Durham to expand via additional staff and equipment. The funding—from nationwide settlements with opioid makers— is a portion of nearly $1 million the city council will vote to allocate tonight. Overall the city stands to receive $4.5 million to combat the opioid crisis locally via the settlements.

With federal funding for Medicaid and other programs under threat, it comes at a critical time. Nearly half of the patients served by Project MAPS rely on Medicaid, Whitney Young, community health lab coordinator at Durham Tech, told Justin.

“This is a huge gamechanger for an organization like ours,” Young says.

Justin reports on the toll of opioids in Durham County and how other programs, like HEART, will use the settlement funds to keep residents safe and save lives. Have a good Monday.

 —Sarah W.

---

Durham

Two weeks after ordering colleges to halt diversity initiatives, the Trump administration is now investigating 45 schools including Duke for working with a program that supports students from underrepresented backgrounds in getting business degrees, the Duke Chronicle reports.

Wake

Civil rights attorneys and the family of Tyrone Mason, who died in a wreck on Capital Boulevard last year, are calling on North Carolina officials to release a state trooper’s body camera footage, saying they believe Mason was being chased when he died, INDY’s Jane Porter reports.

Orange

The granddaughter of Mama Dip’s Mildred Council has opened a new restaurant of her own, Tonya’s Cafe, featuring riffs on Southern classics like a cornbread flight, INDY’s Lena Geller reports.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools addressed rumors of mass layoffs last week, saying the district is going through an “allotment” process that could lead to job cuts later, INDY’s Chase Pellegrini de Paur reports.

North Carolina

The USDA is cancelling $11 million in federal funding for food banks across North Carolina to buy food from local farmers, WUNC reports.

The Court of Appeals will hear Jefferson Griffin’s ballot challenge case this week, and a judge who donated to Griffin’s legal defense fund will recuse himself, NC Newsline reports.

---

If you’d like to advertise your business to the Daily’s 30,000-plus subscribers, please contact [email protected]

---

---

---