HOLYOKE — Members of the community, service providers and people with lived experience are invited to join the Opioid Response Management Team at the Community Needs Assessment Kick Off meeting on Tuesday, July 15 at noon, at the first floor City Hall Conference Room, 536 Dwight St.
Mayor Joshua Garcia said in a social media post that this meeting will serve as a planning session to discuss the upcoming survey work, outreach and community needs assessment.
Lunch will be provided. Readers are asked to RSVP to zoellera@holyoke.org or call 413-322-5610.
This meeting comes after Garcia approved the Opioid Fund Management Plan, developed by Holyoke’s Office for Community Development, which is a document that outlines the community engagement process, the allocation of funds process, the timeline and the financial management of the funds.
The Opioid Settlement Fund Management Plan can be found at tinyurl.com/4699trrt.
The community needs assessment, and the allocation processes will be modeled after Holyoke’s HUD Community Development Block Grant program, which emphasizes community engagement and transparency in the award of funds.
The Office for Community Development will be responsible for the allocation and fiscal management of the program and the Board of Health will be assisting with the community needs assessment.
The city of Holyoke is one of the municipalities who will be receiving legal settlements the state’s attorney general completed with pharmaceutical companies and opioid distributors who were complicit in aiding the opioid crisis.
The settlement meant that these companies would allocate funds directly to the state’s municipalities and the funds would be used to address harm done to residents, driven by the needs of each community.
Garcia stated, “Investigations conducted by the MA Attorney General’s Office brought to light the egregious actions that these companies committed by knowingly misleading patients and doctors about the addictive nature of opioids, filling suspicious drug orders due to a lack of diversion controls, negligently dispensing opioids, and deploying deceptive marketing campaigns designed to influence providers to prescribe more opioids, to more patients, for longer periods of time.”
Over $50 billion in Opioid Settlement Funds have been awarded across the country to state and local governments because of litigation and the national settlement between the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the opioid industry.
Massachusetts decided to allocate 40% of those settlement funds to cities in towns across the state from 2021 to 2038.
In 2024, Holyoke received nearly $427,000 in total. Holyoke is estimated to receive a total of $3.6 million through fiscal year 2039.
Holyoke is also utilizing resources available at Care: Massachusetts to ensure Holyoke’s program provides the maximum benefit to the community and is consistent with the Massachusetts State-Subdivision Agreement for the Statewide Opioid Settlement.
The 2025 Holyoke Opioid Calendar can also be found at Holyoke.org to find key dates for the community needs assessment and distribution of the opioid settlement funds over the next few months.
