Huntsville Backs 16-Bed Crisis Center With $3 Million in Opioid Funds

Huntsville's City Council voted 3-2 Thursday night to commit up to $3 million in opioid settlement money to Wellstone for a 16-bed crisis residential facility, more than double what the behavioral health nonprofit asked for and without a competitive application process — a combination that drew objections from two council members and a public argument about how settlement dollars should be handed out.

Wellstone initially requested $1.4 million. The city approved $3 million, capped at $1 million a year beginning in fiscal 2028, to cover furnishings, fixtures and equipment plus clinical staff salaries once the facility opens. Mayor Tommy Battle said the full project runs about $16 million and that the opioid funds go toward equipping and operating it, not construction.

Why two members voted no

Council members Michelle Watkins and John Meredith said they learned of the arrangement shortly before the vote and objected that other mental health providers were never given a chance to compete for the money. Watkins asked city staff whether agencies offering similar services had been invited to apply; they confirmed no request for proposals had been issued.

"How in the world can we justify someone asking for $1.4 million and they're just arbitrarily giving them $3 million?" Meredith said during the meeting, according to WAFF 48.

Battle framed the award as a response to a specific gap identified by Huntsville Hospital and the Madison County Sheriff's Department, which he said brought the problem to the city and found a provider willing to build a facility for it.

"Wellstone came to the rescue and said we would be willing to set up a facility, a facility that can take people... and take the mentally ill people and get them, you know, stabilized and get them into some type of treatment," Battle said.

The gap the crisis unit is meant to close

Wellstone CEO Jeremy Blair told the council the facility would be a 16-bed, high-intensity crisis residential unit — the first of its kind in Alabama — designed to keep people in acute psychiatric distress out of emergency departments and county jails. Huntsville Hospital averages about 90 behavioral health admissions through its emergency room each month, Blair said, and the Madison County Jail averages 30 urgent mental health follow-up admissions monthly.

"The goal and the aim is to continue to divert more individuals away from the emergency department and away from the jails to be able to treat them in a setting that is more inclusive for them and better suited for them," Blair said.

The numbers behind the request are large for a regional nonprofit. Wellstone served a record 17,702 children, teens and adults between Sept. 30, 2025 and Oct. 1, 2026, an increase of about 3,500 over the prior year. More than 3,200 of those clients had substance use disorders, including 529 diagnosed with an opioid use disorder. Blair said the organization's crisis center served 2,411 adults over the past year, a 20 percent increase from 2025, and that Wellstone absorbed $5.8 million in uncompensated care across all services.

A second, smaller award for prevention

The council also approved up to $120,000 for Not One More Alabama, capped at $60,000 a year, to support the nonprofit's mobile Discovery Room — an interactive exhibit that teaches adults to recognize warning signs in teenagers and start conversations about substances. The money covers a dedicated event specialist, updated exhibit furnishings and opioid-related displays, materials and operations.

That line item is prevention spending in the conventional sense: education and family support rather than clinical services. The Wellstone award is the opposite — beds, equipment and salaries at the acute end of the system, where the levels of care available in Alabama have historically been thin.

Settlement money comes with strings, and a debate

Huntsville's opioid settlement receipts are restricted. Under the national settlement agreements and state memoranda of understanding, the dollars must be spent on approved uses: treatment, recovery support, harm reduction, prevention, law enforcement diversion and related activities. Crisis services and medication for opioid use disorder qualify; general government functions do not.

That restriction makes the award permissible, but it does not answer the process question the two council members raised. As settlement funds have moved from state capitols into city budgets over the past two years, the recurring complaint from advocates has been inconsistency — some communities run public scoring rubrics and open application windows, others direct money to a preferred provider in a single vote. Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia are now facing calls for outside audits of how their share has been allocated.

For Huntsville, the practical result is a facility expected to take pressure off two overloaded intake points at once: the hospital emergency department and the county jail. Whether it does depends on staffing, on whether the crisis unit can accept people who are intoxicated or uninsured, and on whether the city builds a process that other providers can enter the next time settlement dollars are on the table.

People seeking help for opioid addiction in Alabama can find medication-assisted treatment programs and crisis services through the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.