## Meeting Overview On the afternoon of January 13, 2025, the Bellingham City Council's Public Health, Safety, Justice and Equity Committee convened for what would prove to be a remarkable presentation about innovation in addiction treatment. Committee Chair Daniel Hammill presided over the 25-minute session, joined by Council Members Michael Lilliquist and Edwin "Skip" Williams, along with Mayor Kimberley Lund, who attended as a non-committee member. The single agenda item — a presentation on mobile medical units from the Swinomish Tribe's didgwálič Wellness Center — represented something extraordinary in the landscape of municipal governance: a tribal nation stepping forward to address the opioid crisis not just for its own members, but for the broader community. What emerged from this brief committee meeting was a portrait of generosity, partnership, and innovative approaches to one of the region's most pressing public health challenges. ## The didgwálič Partnership: A National Model Comes to Bellingham Malora Christensen, Whatcom County's Response Systems Manager, opened her presentation by describing the remarkable scope of what was about to unfold in Bellingham. The Swinomish Indian Tribe, which had opened its didgwálič Wellness Center in Anacortes in 2017, was now extending its services directly into Whatcom County with two mobile medical units valued at approximately one million dollars. "This is an exciting one," Christensen told the committee. "I think Whatcom County and the city of Bellingham have been doubling down on efforts to address the opioid crisis to support people struggling with addiction and those challenges are great and we are making some significant inroads on expanding treatment services and one of those is a partnership with the Swinamish Tribe and the D. Wallych Wellness Center and immense generosity on the part of our tribal partners." The presentation, delivered both in person and virtually with Dr. Bryce Parent and Erik Ostergaard joining from didgwálič, outlined a comprehensive expansion that would bring life-saving medication-assisted treatment directly to Bellingham. The mobile units would dispense suboxone and methadone to up to 400 patients per day when fully operational, with services running six days a week from 8 AM to 12:30 PM. Christensen painted a vivid picture of what makes didgwálič unique in the treatment landscape: "it is the embodiment of trauma-informed care, of whole-person care, of seeing people in their environment and saying, what is needed for wellness? What is needed for health? Is do you need childcare while you're seeking appointments? Do you need some food? Do you need transportation? Would you like to talk to an addiction counselor? Would you like to address mental health? Do you need to see a dentist? And so they have built a wellness center that is really able to address the whole person and the whole family." ## The Division Street Campus Vision The location chosen for this expansion — 2028 Division Street — is no accident. Adjacent to the Andy Kinsinger Center for Hope crisis stabilization facility and the planned 23-hour Crisis Relief Center, the site represents an emerging "behavioral health campus" that concentrates comprehensive services for people struggling with mental health and substance use disorders. "We are starting more and more to think about this as a behavioral health campus, a place in which a concentration of comprehensive services are available for people that are struggling with mental health that are struggling with substance use disorder," Christensen explained. The mobile medical units themselves are impressive in scale — 34-foot RVs that will make the daily journey from Anacortes to Bellingham, carrying with them not just medication but a full complement of staff including doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, client navigators, substance use disorder counselors, peer counselors, and security personnel. The units will accept both walk-in and scheduled appointments, with the possibility of extending hours from the initial 8 AM to 1 PM window to 4 PM as demand requires. ## Transportation Challenges and Solutions One of the most practical concerns raised during the meeting centered on transportation — how to get patients to the Division Street location, which sits outside the main public transit corridors. Council Member Hannah Stone, attending as a non-committee member, asked detailed questions about the daily operations of the mobile units and their travel patterns. Dr. Parent, speaking virtually from didgwálič, explained that the units would travel daily from Anacortes based on DEA requirements for opioid treatment programs. "The hours that we're discussing are focused on serving the community through the Division Street location next to the crisis services that Laura was discussing," he said, confirming that the units' destination each day would be Bellingham specifically. The transportation challenge prompted discussion of multiple solutions. Christensen mentioned the county's dedicated transportation staff who help people get from point A to point B, while noting that didgwálič operates an impressive transportation system in Skagit County that picks people up, takes them to appointments, and provides rides to essential services. Council Member Lilliquist offered an optimistic perspective on public transit solutions: "I think the good thing that works in favor of this is route number 48 is sort of an odd ball route WTA uses where we have otherwise unneeded on, you know, buses returning back to the station at near Division Street. And so there's sort of a free route from the Cordata station from Division Street that's hardly any extra work, no extra drivers, no extra buses needed." ## Council Response: Gratitude and Recognition The tone of the committee's response was one of profound gratitude and recognition of the historic nature of this partnership. Chair Hammill set this tone early, calling the mobile units "a serious commitment" and emphasizing the scope of what the tribe was offering: "two dozen staff members, FTEs, that the tribe will commit to working in Bellingham and Walkham County on behalf of over 400 patients." Mayor Lund's response was particularly poignant in its recognition of Hammill's role in making the partnership possible: "I think your words were powerful and so apropos and so well said. But I wanna make sure that you are included in the acknowledgments. This, you were a key player in reaching this milestone and so I wanna express my personal gratitude to you as well." Council Member Williams connected the initiative to broader patterns of tribal leadership in addressing regional health challenges: "Like, there's a clinic out in that's in the infant stages out at Lummi. And when we went down and talked to the tribe down in Anacortis, they took a similar route. It was like, we started it. Then we saw the need is greater than just us. and it's greater than just us and this and I see the lummy situation maybe hopefully going down that same path as they get more experienced and then we have a broader network of service providers that will really help us get past this." ## The Genesis: From Decriminalization to Treatment Perhaps the most revealing moment of the presentation came when Chair Hammill provided historical context for how this partnership emerged. The story begins with the city's decision to decriminalize public drug use — a controversial policy shift that required the council to grapple with fundamental questions about how to address addiction in their community. "Last year, City Council voted to make public drug use legal. And it was a shift in thinking. And the council, including the colleagues that I have here, had a lot of questions about that, like what would that look like? Simply punishment was probably not going to be the best choice and so could we provide some kind of off-rams?" Hammill explained. The council had initially looked toward community court as a solution, but that was at least a year away from implementation. It was at this crucial juncture that the Swinomish Tribe reached out, inviting city and county officials to visit didgwálič and see firsthand what trauma-informed, patient-centered care could accomplish. "We saw this as a way to provide treatment services to help people who are suffering from addiction," Hammill said, noting that the council readily moved forward to work with the tribe on making the partnership happen. ## Community Impact and Broader Significance The statistics presented during the meeting underscored both the need and the remarkable generosity of the tribal response. Seventy percent of patients served at the existing didgwálič facility in Anacortes are not tribal members, demonstrating the tribe's commitment to serving the broader community. The financial commitment is substantial — two mobile units worth approximately one million dollars, two dozen full-time staff members, and the operational costs of daily travel between Anacortes and Bellingham. Hammill reflected on the profound nature of this gift: "The definition of community that I was taught by the service providers and tribal elders from Swinamish has brought in my sense of what I consider to be my own community. And so I am indebted to Eric Ostrigar, Dr. Bryce Parent, Bev Keees, Leon John, and all the staff members, huge, the transportation coordinator and everyone else at works at the at the clinic for offering this to our community at at no cost." The partnership also represents something unique in the national landscape. As Hammill noted, "This is a very unique relationship. I don't know of another example in the country." The collaboration between tribal, county, and city governments to address the opioid crisis through this model appears to be unprecedented. ## Timeline and Next Steps With Whatcom County Council poised to approve the lease on January 15th, 2025, the timeline for implementation was remarkably swift. Christensen anticipated a soft opening in early February, with community outreach planned for the Irongate neighborhood including door-to-door visits, flyers, and emails to local businesses to ensure awareness of the new services. The presentation also included plans for open houses once didgwálič is ready to showcase the facility, and minor improvements to the existing building — a rectangular county structure adjacent to the Crisis Stabilization Center. The east side houses the work center jail, while the west side contains offices for the alternative response team and the clinic space that had been largely vacant since providers moved into the new crisis stabilization center. ## A Model for Broader Collaboration As the brief meeting concluded — running nine minutes over schedule, which Chair Hammill noted "will be a trend for 2025 and a committee" — the significance of what had been presented was clear. This was not simply the expansion of a treatment program, but a demonstration of what becomes possible when different levels of government work together with tribal nations to address shared challenges. The didgwálič partnership represents more than addiction treatment; it embodies a vision of community that transcends jurisdictional boundaries and demonstrates how indigenous leadership in healthcare can benefit entire regions. As Bellingham prepares to welcome these mobile medical units to Division Street, the initiative stands as a powerful example of how innovation, generosity, and collaboration can create new pathways for addressing some of society's most complex challenges. For the families and individuals struggling with addiction in Whatcom County, the arrival of didgwálič's mobile medical units in early February will represent something far more immediate: hope, access to life-saving treatment, and the recognition that their community — defined broadly and generously — is committed to their healing and recovery.