Travis County gets $1.6M to combat overdose deaths tied to county jail

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- After finding a disproportionate number of people leaving jail are overdosing and dying within months of being released from custody, the county is focusing harm reduction and treatment efforts on that population.

Travis County Judge Andy Brown said people leaving county jail are eight times more likely to die of an overdose than the rest of the community in the first six months after being released.

"That's largely because their tolerance has changed and they're not on an injectable that curbs their desire to take opioids," Brown said.

Monday, Travis County announced it has received a federal grant worth $1.6 million to help with things like: in-jail peer recovery support, access to nursing services to manage medications after being released from jail and expanding access to medication-assisted treatment including long-lasting injectable medication.

"And what that means is instead of having medically-assisted treatment that maybe lasts a day, or a week or something like that -- and we're talking about things like methadone and other drugs that help curb the desire for opioids -- this will be a long-acting injectable, so that means that it will have that effect for months instead of days or weeks," Brown explained.

It's something Maggie Luna, the director of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, said is critical for people dealing with an underlying addiction that jail often makes worse.

"I am somebody who spent 20 years in and out of jail, rehab, and prison all due to an opioid battle that I was fighting for 20 years," Luna said. "People don't realize how hard it is to have nobody, to get out with nothing. And even if you really want to not use -- sometimes that's what's been saving their lives."

The Texas Harm Reduction Alliance already does some work inside the Travis County jail educating people on the dangers of fentanyl and drug overdoses. Luna hopes this additional funding will help save more lives.

"I just hope that it expands the access to resources for people so that there are positive changes for them," she said.

Overdose deaths down for first time in three years

County leaders also announced Monday that for the first time in three years, the number of accidental overdose deaths in our county are going down. The same is true for fentanyl-related overdose deaths.

Those numbers come from the Travis County Medical Examiner who released early data on 2024 deaths. That data is only for the first half of the year.

Local leaders contribute the downward trend to education efforts and the use of harm reduction tools like naloxone.

"Earlier this year our community was rocked by a surge in opioid overdoses that impacted hundreds of patients and resulted in nine deaths. Had it not been for the foresight of our county and city leadership in combating the opiate crisis, I am certain the death toll would have been much higher," said Chief Robert Luckritz, with Austin-Travis County EMS.