EVERETT — Therapeutic Health Services, a Seattle nonprofit that operates a methadone clinic in south Everett, is trying to expand its operations in the city.
The group has hit several roadblocks, not least of which is that the city code only allows one such clinic to operate.
The need for a second methadone clinic is acute as Everett struggles to confront what health officials describe as an epidemic of opioid addiction, especially among the city’s large homeless community.
Everett filed a lawsuit in January against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, to repair the damage to the community linked to rampant addiction.
The clinic on 100th Street SW near Evergreen Way is operating at capacity, serving 850 people per day, said Jon Berkedal, a former deputy director for Therapeutic Health Services, which also goes by the name THS. He’s now working on contract to find a new clinic site.
“There’s more demand than we could possibly meet. There are wait lists” of 100-200 people at any given moment, Berkedal said.
“If you don’t get people immediately into treatment when they want it, you might lose them,” he said.
THS operates five clinics in King County distributing opiate substitutes, traditionally methadone but also a newer drug called buprenorphine. The organization also has several other locations in King County providing other substance abuse and mental health counseling.
Snohomish County approached the group two and a half years ago to try opening another clinic in the north part of the county.
On Tuesday, the Everett Planning Commission considered a code amendment that would allow a second clinic to open in the city in the Evergreen Way corridor south of Highway 526, along Broadway north of 24th Street, or in a hospital building.
That’s assuming the nonprofit can find a location.
“It probably won’t work for us or for everyone else to follow the guidelines that are being put forward,” Berkedal told the commission.
Berkedal said he’d looked for a suitable location in Snohomish or Marysville at first, and almost had one in Snohomish lined up before the property owners backed out once they realized what THS did.
“I think what we’re struggling with here is the stigma and people’s fears and concerns,” Commissioner Kathryn Beck said.
All the possible clinic locations in Everett have drawbacks. South Evergreen Way already has the one clinic, and the state would be unlikely to license a second in the same area, Berkedal said.
The small lot sizes along North Broadway are generally not suitable for a clinic capable of handling hundreds of patients. One building that was large enough is owned by Everett Community College, but the state ended discussions after learning what kind of clinic THS wanted to establish there, Berkedal said.
The first location THS found in Everett seemed to have the best potential: the Everett Clinic’s former Trask Surgery Center on the corner of Rucker and Pacific avenues.
It’s a three-story building with 31,000 square feet of floor space and a two-story parking garage. There are good transit connections. It’s already a medical facility, so would be easy to adapt to THS’s needs.
The surgery center, which closed in January 2016, also lies just within Everett’s downtown zone, where the city is trying to encourage more retail and business investment.
Since the city’s Streets Initiative Task Force meetings in 2014, Everett has sought to reduce the concentration of drug use and homelessness downtown.
“At the time we hadn’t realized the scope of the opioid epidemic in the city,” said Everett Director of Public Safety and Health Hil Kaman. “At any moment there are 50-60 people detoxing from opioids in our jail.”
As a result, the city did not want the clinic there, Planning Director Allan Giffen said.
The Planning Commission took a different view Tuesday, and asked city staff to prepare a code amendment that would permit THS to go into the downtown zone, possibly by sending the application to a hearing examiner for review rather than the city’s planning department.
“I just hope we find a place for you here, find a home for you, because we need it,” Commissioner Richard Jordison said.
The commission is scheduled to revisit the revised amendment at its June 6 meeting, which will also include a public hearing of the code.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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