ATHENS, Ohio — Local historian, Athens resident and longtime recovery worker Ron Luce will now represent Athens County, among others, on the nonprofit created to distribute funds from Ohio’s opioid settlements.
At the regular OneOhio Region 10 board meeting on Feb. 7, board chair and Athens County Commissioner Lenny Eliason nominated Luce to represent the region on the OneOhio Recovery Foundation Board.
The OneOhio Recovery Foundation is a private nonprofit created by the state to distribute 55% of the more than $800 million collected by Ohio as part of nationwide opioid settlements.
Luce replaces Jeffrey Simmons of Vinton County in representing OneOhio Region 10. Region 10 comprises Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs and Vinton counties. According to Harm Reduction Ohio, five of Region 10’s seven counties are among the top 20 counties for highest overdose rates in 2023. Vinton County has the second highest rate in the state.
Luce steps into the position with years of experience working in recovery. He served as director for the John W. Clem Recovery House for five years, when he “became very enmeshed in the whole recovery movement,” he told the Independent. He also worked with Hopewell Health Centers, helping set up peer recovery services at OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital in Athens, and Hocking Valley Community Hospital in Logan.
Luce looks at substance use disorders on an individual level, noting that each person has different experiences with and access to healthcare.
“I think when you get down to the individual level, you have to take each person on his or her terms and try to find the resources that work for that person,” Luce said. “And a lot of the resources are either not available or they are spread so thin that it’s difficult to get at them, get the help that people need.”
Luce said he also helped develop Ohio Recovery Housing, the state’s affiliate of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences. ORH sets standards and offers peer-reviewed certification for recovery housing, as well as training and technical assistance to housing operators. Luce helped write the NARR guidelines that underlie the state’s standards.
”A rich peer recovery support network would be very, very helpful” in Region 10, Luce said. The area has effective resources, he noted, but they are not always accessible.
“I think there are a lot of things that we know work, and if people can take advantage of them — for example, medically assisted treatment is a very powerful tool, but it needs to be accompanied by some psychological counseling and those kinds of things,” Luce said.
However, Luce added that “isolating the issue of substance use disorders, in and of itself, is not going to resolve the problems — you have to deal with a lot more than that,” specifically mentioning trauma.
“The reality is, I think that there’s a lot of need around the country for people to feel like there’s more — that they have purpose in their lives, that they’re capable of making enough money to take care of their families, that they get the education that they need,” he said.
OneOhio Region 10 is preparing to roll out an upcoming grant program using its $1.42 million from the state foundation. A request for proposals will be published March 4 and registration will open in the OneOhio Grant Portal.
At its meeting on Feb. 7, the regional board decided to spread the funding across the region as a whole rather than split the money between counties. However, the board did set five priorities for funding: treatment and healthcare services, intervention and crisis services, recovery, workforce development and prevention.
The OneOhio Recovery Foundation board’s next public meeting will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 13, at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, 34 S. Third St., Columbus. Meetings are open to the public and materials are available online.
