Diné funds axed for Page detox

By John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

PAGE, Ariz. — A decision by the Navajo Nation’s Department of Behavioral Services could force a Page detox facility to close its doors.

Navajo DBS Director Herman Largo sent a letter to the facility saying the tribe would no longer contribute funding. Largo ’s Nov. 26 letter offered no reasons for the decision.
Largo is on travel and was unavailable for comment.

The Nation is in the process of building the Navajo Nation Regional Adult Residential Treatment Center in Shiprock.
The detox facility, first opened its doors in 1996, as a joint effort between the tribe, the city of Page and the state of Arizona , serves Navajos from the surrounding area, Norman Stevens, supervisor for the detox center, said.
Maybe the center was a victim of its own success, Stevens said.

When the center opened, it was serving around 3,000 people a year, Stevens said.

“Last year we only had about 900 come through the door,” he added.

Joe Wright, director of the Community Behavioral Health Services program in Page, said one of the reasons that the state funded the program was because, in the 12 months prior to its opening, there were 13 deaths related to exposure and intoxication.

The Nation’s sudden pullout from the program is particularly dismaying to Wright, because most of the people who come to the detox facility are Navajo.

“About 99.9 percent are Navajo,” Stevens said.

For Wright it’s a Navajo problem. And the problem is simply geographical.

The Navajo Nation is dry and does not sell alcohol, but the city of Page does. And though the problem of Anglo alcoholism is perhaps greater than the Navajo factor, there is a vital difference, according to Wright.

The difference is that the Navajo people come off of the reservation, travel a great distance; when they get intoxicated, they often either get left behind or don’t have a ride to get back home, Wright said.

The people who are left behind generally set up makeshift places to sleep, generally in the parks. During the winter, some of the people who get drunk and pass out outside freeze to death, Wright said.

The Anglos live in the city and have a shorter distance to go to reach home.

The number of intoxicated people that have to be brought to the facility has dropped in the 11 years. In the last fiscal year, approximately 900 people were brought into the facility to dry out or seek treatment for alcohol dependency.

Wright credits Stevens with its success. Stevens gets the people involved in talking circles, sweat lodges, traditional ceremonies, peyote ceremonies and other activities to treat their addictions, Wright said.

“People are flat out getting better,” Wright said.

There will always be a need for detox facilities like Page’s, Stevens said.

“This problem is not going to go away,” he said.

Without the facility, it is likely that the numbers will rise once again, he added.

Maybe part of the problem is that the Nation thinks its money is going to the city, Stevens said.

“In the border towns, it’s hard to get anything,” Stevens said. “I guess they think its going to the town. But it isn’t. We have a Navajo staff and 99 — no, 99.9 — percent of the people we see are Navajo.”

The initial agreement required all three government entities — the city, the tribe and the state — to provide funding for the program, but Wright is trying to see if he can get the city and the state to up its commitment to keep the center open, Stevens said.

The Navajo Nation’s share of funds comes to approximately $139,000 annually, he said. With the city’s annual contribution of $35,000 and the state chipping in $250,000, the pullout reduces the center’s funding by almost one-third.

What perplexes Stevens is that the Nation is yanking funding from Page, but still funds identical programs in Flagstaff , Winslow and Holbrook.

People around Page won’t be able to travel to one of those facilities, Stevens said.

“It’s just going to be sad seeing us go back to where we were 10 years ago, with no facility whatsoever,” Wright said.

Stevens is upset, disappointed and still mystified by the Navajo Nation’s decision.

“I guess we just did too good. The announcement of the tribe’s pullout from the program is particularly dismaying to Wright because most of the people who come to the detox facility are Navajo,” he said.

Wright has tried to get in touch with Largo and other officials with the tribal behavioral services department to try and get a clear answer as to why. Wright claimed he reached Largo once, who told the CBHS director that he would get back to him the next day. Several days passed without a call, and then Wright received another call saying a tribal representative was coming to CBHS to do an exit interview.

Stevens has contact chapter officials in the nearby Navajo communities and asked them to pass resolutions encouraging the tribe to continue to provide funds for the detox center.