By addressing trauma, Del Paso Heights nonprofit seeks to reverse area's growing fentanyl crisis

Along the Sacramento Northern Bike Trail in Del Paso Heights, where dozens of people live in tent encampments, one outreach group is trying to address a growing number of fentanyl-related deaths. 

Around lunchtime on a recent Monday, the nonprofit team with Neighborhood Wellness Foundation handed out sandwiches, water bottles and hygiene products to homeless residents, many who grew up in the neighborhood. 

There was a new addition to the kits: two boxes of Narcan, the opioid-reversal medicine. Then, the organization’s co-founder, Dr. Gina Warren, asked a few questions — about the person’s past, and whether, as a child, they experienced trauma, domestic violence or incarceration. 

Since Sacramento County began collecting data about fentanyl five years ago, fentanyl-related deaths have exploded, from 17 in 2018 to 227 in 2022. In Del Paso Heights, 38 people have died over the past five years and the trend is increasing. 

So far in 2023, 165 people have died in Sacramento County with some fentanyl in their system, according to the county dashboard, and it is on-track to reach the high numbers of the past two years. County data shows Black residents in the region are dying at a higher rate than ever before. 

Now some community workers, like Warren, are testing out new approaches to lower drug-related deaths in the neighborhood.

Acknowledging the trauma

Near the start of Redding Park at the corner of Rio Linda and Harris avenues, Warren asked a few people living outside about their childhoods, marking their answers to her survey on an online form. One man shared he was abused when he was young, and many of his family members had died or been incarcerated. She told the group to come by the following week for a “big old therapy session” at Neighborhood Wellness. 

As she returned to her car, Warren praised the man for overcoming the hardest hurdle: acknowledging the trauma. “It ain't nothing to be ashamed about, because it's not what you wanted. It's just what happened; this is what you've experienced.”

Warren grew up in the neighborhood and saw the crack epidemic wipe out the existing community. She witnessed friends and family members get caught in using and selling drugs. It’s an option, she said, when there are few choices. 

“You always go down toxic spaces if you don't know there's another road to travel, right? You make better choices when there are more options other than that which is toxic,” she said. 

After graduating from Grant High School, Warren went on to UC Berkeley, and from there, UC San Francisco’s School of Pharmacy, where she earned her doctorate in pharmacology. She said once she started giving out prescriptions in the region, she worried she was contributing to over-medication.  

“I had a kid say to me coming out of [Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center]. He said ‘I don't need another drug, I need somebody to talk to.’ And that woke me up, in a way that nothing else could have,” Warren said. “It was like: Is this really health care? Is this wellness? And the answer was no. And so how do you help people be well? It’s by touching their basic humanity, that's how.”

In 2015, Warren founded Neighborhood Wellness with her collaborator Marilyn Woods. She said their initial intention was to connect people with resources and a wellness center. Soon, they realized intergenerational trauma and poverty was holding people down.

“If we don't deal with their trauma, the resources are just resources. They mean nothing unless you deal with what is causing folks to be stunted or paralyzed in their state of life,” she said.

The group began holding ‘healing circles’ where people share about their life experiences with other local residents. Part of the mission is helping people identify their adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. 

These are potentially traumatic childhood experiences, according to the CDC, and can fall under the categories of abuse, neglect and household challenges. Studying and preventing these adverse experiences have been primary issues for former California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. 

Anyone interested in participating can come to their regular healing circles at the Neighborhood Wellness building on 3805 Clay Street on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. 

Warren said she sees the method working, but in order to expand, they need data.

“You have to be able to prove to people, yes, what we're doing is working, we see it every day,” Warren said. “Sometimes it's that qualitative data that's hard to capture, so what we're doing now is starting to get the numbers, starting to look at patterns and the patterns of disparities or the patterns of improvement.”

After doing the survey with the first group, Warren realized there was a lot more work to do to build trust with the people living in Redding Park before the team could collect data. She started spreading the word that they’d bring the healing circles to the encampments. 

“We need to go to where they are and help them create a loving space and help them out of a situation without criticism, without judgment,” she said.

Fentanyl is “in everything”

During the outing, Warren’s team administered multiple doses of Narcan to a woman who seemed to be overdosing in an encampment and spoke with people who had recently overdosed about their experiences. 

Volunteers also handed out a box of Narcan to a man named Joseph, who’d recently been discharged from a week-long stay at the hospital. Joseph, whose last name CapRadio withheld because of potential negative impacts, said he woke up in the hospital after smoking crack cocaine. He was told he’d overdosed on fentanyl that was in the drug, and had had a stroke. He couldn’t move his right hand, and doctors said they didn’t know when he’d regain use of it. 

“[Fentanyl’s] in everything, because it’s cheaper to cut with it,” Joseph said, referring to the practice of replacing some of a drug with another substance to cut down on costs. 

Joseph said, for the past three months, he’s been on a local service providers’ waitlist for housing. He said getting into his own place will help him get away from the drug use that happens along the bike trail.

“It’s just like when you go by the store every day, you get a soda. You go by the coffee shop, you get coffee. You know, you come down this block right here? This block is drugs, you know, because that's what they’ve got to do,” he said.

The region is seeing more and more street drugs laced and replaced with fentanyl, as well as fentanyl being pressed into counterfeit pills, said Lori Miller, who heads the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Services division of Sacramento County’s health department. 

“We're seeing an alarming increase in particular areas across Sacramento County, particularly (in) communities of color,” she said. Miller said this year, 26% of the fentanyl-related deaths were among Black people, who make up just 10% of the county’s population.

“No neighborhood, no community is safe at this point,” she said. 

In addition to Narcan, the department has also been giving out fentanyl test strips for people who want to check whether fentanyl is present in their drug. They’re also partnering with agencies like Neighborhood Wellness, which have pre-existing relationships with people in the community.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Dr. Gina Warren's title. She is a co-founder of the Neighborhood Wellness Foundation.

Editor's note: This story was updated to remove personal information from a person potentially at risk.