(KNSI) – The St. Cloud City Council will spend $870,000 of opioid settlement money in the coming years, split between preventative measures like encampment clean-up and harm reduction programs and the co-responder initiative run by the police department.
Police Chief Jeff Oxton says the money will fund two positions in the Mental Health Response Unit, both of which are difficult to fill. “People going into that line of work, though, there’s not a track in colleges for this co-responder type field, so I think it’s new to many. So, there’s not a lot of applicants when we open it up.”
Oxton thinks many envision themselves in more traditional psychotherapy settings. Having to don a bulletproof vest and answer calls in the field takes some selling. The results speak for themselves, though.
St. Cloud has been able to reduce forced hospitalizations from over 1,000 per year to about 450 in 2025. The unit now answers about 800 calls per year, or better than two per day.
Oxton explains why using co-responders is effective. “So, I think our co-responders, who again are licensed mental health practitioners, they can do better diagnostics in the field to recognize when a person actually maybe is okay to stay home, or to come up with a safety plan in which they go with somebody else, and then connect them with other mental health resources in the community.”
One of the positions requires a bachelor’s degree, the other a master’s. During Oxton’s presentation to the council, he made the point that mental health, homelessness, and substance abuse are all interconnected issues.
While overdose deaths are leveling off, they are up tenfold since fentanyl burst onto the scene in about 2018. Suicides continue to plague the city. Attempts are up 40% since 2020. St. Cloud has had 23 suicides this year.
Oxton says using settlement funds through 2029 gives the department time to find funding that can make the co-responder positions permanent members of the staff. He is committed enough to the program that he would request cuts elsewhere to ensure it continues if it comes to that.
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