Enterprise council hears briefing that links homelessness to mental health and substance use; law enforcement, courts highlighted

City Administrator John Thomas told the Enterprise City Council on a work-session night that multiple stakeholder meetings with local law enforcement, the sheriff’s office, the district attorney and social-service providers found roughly two dozen to three dozen people living without shelter in the city at any given time.

Thomas said those meetings — which included Christian Mission, HandUp Enterprise, area churches and the Veterans Administration — showed recurring causes: untreated mental illness and addiction. “If we built 36 new homes tomorrow and gave them to the people that are homeless right now in the city of Enterprise, they would still be homeless in days or weeks ahead,” Thomas said, adding that many people are “suffering from mental illness or drug problems, or both.”

The nut graf: city officials framed the issue as a mix of public-safety, public-health and resource gaps rather than a purely housing shortage. They described limited local treatment capacity, dependence on voluntary enrollment in programs and high legal standards for involuntary commitment.

Chief Michael Moore, who spoke to the council after Thomas, described the operational challenges police face when responding to people with severe mental-health crises or substance use disorders. He said some people who needed inpatient care waited days in hospitals while officials sought an available treatment bed. “We had one that we had committed for threatening to kill themselves, and we sat in the hospital for five days with them,” Moore said, noting the difficulty of securing placements.

Moore described law-enforcement responses on the drug side as largely investigative and resource-intensive: more investigators, overtime and a larger Special Response Team would increase the department’s ability to build cases and execute search warrants. He said the police participate in regional drug task forces and federal task forces to target supply.

Council members pressed for how municipal resources might be used. Thomas suggested the city could consider directing future opioid-settlement funds toward court- or treatment-related programs and partner with county-developed community-corrections plans. Thomas said such allocations could help support drug court and related supervision systems; he cautioned that many services and funding decisions depend on county, state or federal programs.

Chief Moore and Thomas described limited local outpatient treatment resources (they named Christian Mission and private rehabilitation options), and noted that veterans who seek care often have treatment paths through the VA. Moore said forced treatment typically requires court involvement and that where available, community corrections or drug-court referrals can include rehabilitation components.

The council did not take a formal vote or adopt a funding plan during the session. Staff recommended continued coordination with county partners, courts and regional providers and asked council members to consider supporting court- and treatment-oriented uses of future opioid-settlement funds and to maintain law-enforcement support for investigation and prosecution efforts.

Council members said they were satisfied with the briefing and stressed that local action is limited without broader state or federal resources, but they signaled support for partnering with the county on community-corrections planning and for directing some discretionary future funds toward court- and treatment-related responses to substance use.