CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- How is Hamilton County doing on key issues?
New data released is painting that picture.
Hamilton Counted is an initiative that tracks various issues across the county such as homelessness, participation in food assistance programs, and crime.
One issue that has seen a downtrend is the amount of accidental drug overdose deaths.
The number of overdose deaths last year according to the data, which was 119 deaths, is roughly half of the overdose deaths recorded in 2022 which was 209 deaths.
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp credits initiatives like the Overdose Prevention Team, who have responded to over 300 calls since their launch in November, for that result.
Mayor Wamp said, “The fact that it’s come down doesn’t make me feel particularly good because there’s still 119 people who lost their lives to overdoses. It does make me think that the work that we’ve committed ourselves to is beginning to show results and that we can continue to drive that number down to save lives and make this a better place to live.”
Out of those 119 overdose deaths, 45 of those occurred in the 37421 ZIP Code which is the East Brainerd, Lee Highway, and Airport area.
Mayor Wamp explained that area sees a lot of overdose calls because of problems at motels along the interstate.
The mayor said, “We have to understand why it is that people are in the circumstances that they are that is leading them to being in a motel in that part of our community, so desperately hopeless that they’ve overdosed on fentanyl.”
Mayor Wamp also explained his recent decision to close the county’s dental clinic at the Hamilton County Health Department.
He said that the clinic was not running efficiently, especially compared to non-profit providers in our community like Cempa and Clinica Medicos, which are receiving the funds each for their dental clinics in this upcoming budget that were previously designated for the county-ran dental clinic.
Mayor Wamp said, “Taxpayers were subsidizing the county competing with these non-profit dental clinics… We think that support empowers these nonprofit providers that are already providing pediatric dental care more efficiently than the county was.”
For more data released in Hamilton Counted, visit here.
