Connecticut's first state-funded methadone vans expand access to
treatment
[August 19, 2026]
By CALISTA OETAMA/The Connecticut Mirror
Mobile methadone units did not exist in Connecticut when Frankie DeJesus
started his recovery in 2012. He wishes they did.
DeJesus, a recovery support specialist for Community Health Resources,
has spent nearly all his life in Enfield, right by Connecticut’s
northern border. After a Percocet prescription for knee pain developed
into a dependence on heroin and other opioids, DeJesus began traveling
to Hartford’s Root Center to receive methadone, widely considered the
most effective treatment for opioid use disorder.
The Root Center, though 20 miles away from Enfield, was the closest
methadone clinic to DeJesus’s home. Every day for a year and a half, he
would make the 30-minute drive to receive his dose of methadone before
driving back to work. Dosing windows were short and often coincided with
rush hours. Sometimes, he’d take the HOV lane to ensure he arrived at
the clinic in time. Other times, reluctant to break the law, he’d miss
the morning window and would have to leave work early to get his dose
before the clinic closed.
“It was a huge barrier to my recovery,” DeJesus said.
Beginning this summer, clients struggling to access methadone treatment
may be able to receive care more easily. Large mobile units — often
referred to as “vans,” though they are closer to RVs — have begun
traveling to parts of northeastern and southeastern Connecticut that
experience high opioid overdose rates. They are the first state-funded
mobile methadone units in Connecticut’s history.
The state has invested more than $4 million, drawn from opioid
settlement funds, into the development of the vans. The APT Foundation
launched two units in July, serving communities along Greater New Haven
and the southeastern shoreline, and CHR’s van will begin traveling
across northeastern Connecticut on Aug. 18. Providers and researchers
say the vans will expand access to life-saving treatment and reduce the
stigma of receiving care for opioid use disorder.
“There’s a lot of people we’re not getting to,” said Kevin Laymon, a
recovery support specialist at CHR and the driver of the van. “We’re
going to bring it to people instead of having them come to us and
struggle.”
Traveling to treatment in the Quiet Corner
CHR’s van will serve Connecticut’s northeastern region, also known as
the Quiet Corner. Data from the Department of Public Health shows that,
in 2024, Windham reported 62.9 unintentional drug overdose deaths per
100,000 people — the seventh-highest in the state and four times the
national average.
Most towns in the northeastern region, which is mostly forest and
farmland, have a population of fewer than 10,000. There are only three
clinics that offer methadone treatment in the region: two in Windham and
another in Putnam.
“I understand the thought process of more people, more resources,” said
Selena Perez-Suarez, a CHR clinician serving the van. “But then we have
this community that’s overlooked. I think that’s why addiction is so
high in this area.”
Methadone, along with buprenorphine and naltrexone, is one of only three
FDA-approved medications for opioid use disorder. It reduces craving and
blunts pain from withdrawal. As a Schedule II substance, it’s also the
most tightly regulated out of the three medications: unlike the two
other drugs, physicians cannot prescribe it for pick-up at a pharmacy to
treat opioid use disorder.
Instead, clients must travel in-person to clinics certified by the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to dispense
methadone. Often, this means waking up early to receive a dose in time
for work, and many clients in early stages of treatment must make trips
every day to mitigate the most severe withdrawal symptoms.
But for many, committing to this form of treatment is easier said than
done. In 2024, researchers at Yale University and Virginia Tech
University found that some Connecticut residents, such as those living
in parts of Middlesex and Litchfield counties, would have to drive at
least 45 minutes to the nearest methadone clinic.
The burden is even greater for people who rely on public transit: some,
particularly in eastern Connecticut, may spend up to three hours on a
bus or train for a one-way trip to the nearest clinic. And this assumes
they have access to public transport at all.
There are no trains and only two taxi services covering three towns in
the northeastern region, according to Perez-Suarez. Almost all buses
serving the Northeastern Connecticut Transit District start running
after 8 a.m. and stop by 5 p.m., outside the windows of time when
clients typically travel to get their doses.
The state offers non-emergency medical transportation on request but
only to those who have insurance to cover those services. Cameron Breen
— a street outreach case manager at Liberation Programs, which runs
several methadone clinics — also notes that some people who need
treatment are homeless or do not have a stable address where they can be
picked up.
“Those individuals lacking an address, in a lot of circumstances, are
also usually lacking a phone and the ability for (the operator) to
contact them to say, ‘Hey, we’re on our way,’” Breen said.
Starting Aug. 18, the van will try to meet those who cannot make it to a
brick-and-mortar any other way. CHR workers will first restock the van
with methadone at CHR’s office in Putnam. They’ll drive 40 minutes to
treat clients near CHR’s clinic in Willimantic, which does not offer
methadone treatment, before making stops in other towns. Though they
will only determine a final route after assessing need during the first
few months of operation, they anticipate making rounds through
Plainfield and parts of Killingly.
“The main thing we carry to the Quiet Corner of the state is
transportation,” Laymon said. “People can’t get around because of the
transit system.”
A solution on the road
Mobile methadone units have existed as early as 1979, when a municipal
bus program in Amsterdam dispensed methadone to pockets of the city with
high drug use. In 1988, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
approved the nation’s first methadone “clinic on wheels” in Brockton,
Mass., as a response to the AIDS epidemic. Brockton residents fiercely
opposed the construction of brick-and-mortar clinics, but, as the New
York Times reported, “The mobile clinic has been largely accepted
because it treats the problem, then goes away.”
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The DEA continued to approve units on an ad hoc basis until 2007, when
concerns about diversion prevented the administration from issuing new
licenses. Eventually, the advent of synthetic opioids and historically
high overdose rates during the coronavirus pandemic prompted bipartisan
efforts to increase access to treatment. SAMHSA updated its regulations
to make COVID-era emergency measures such as telehealth screening and
unsupervised take-home doses permanent, while a final rule issued by the
DEA in 2021 lifted the ban on mobile methadone units.
At least 17 states have launched mobile programs since then, and
Connecticut — armed with $185 million in opioid settlement funds, 22% of
which are dedicated to increasing access to treatment — is following
suit.
“We’ve had to build these carve-outs,” said Benjamin Howell, assistant
professor of public health at the Yale School of Medicine and one of the
researchers who conducted the travel time study. “This legacy of
regulation has been on the books for years — we’re just stuck in the
status quo.”
CHR’s van — 33 feet long and 12 feet high, with a front painted lime
green — is hard to miss. From Mondays through Fridays, 7 a.m. to 11
a.m., clients will enter from the van’s back entrance. They’ll register
at a front desk and receive their dose of methadone, bitter pink liquid
in a cup. If they need to, they’ll do case management in a room
outfitted with a medical examination table or counseling in a private
room near the front of the vehicle before leaving through a side door.
The van’s setup allows every stage of the process to remain private and
clients to receive one-on-one care tailored to their needs. By contrast,
DeJesus’s treatment process would be quick: walk in, get his dose, drive
away. He sought counseling, but counselors at methadone clinics
typically have a caseload of 60 to 80 clients each.
“My counselor was rarely ever there,” he said. “I didn’t know what else
was available besides methadone.”
DeJesus eventually stopped receiving methadone treatment in favor of
trying to white-knuckle sobriety. Periods of relapses and eventual
hospitalization for suicidal ideation pushed him to try seeking support
again. It would take six years before “life got different,” he said,
then better. He attributes this shift to counseling and communities such
as his church and long-term recovery support groups and hopes clients
can find similar forms of support through the vans.
“Without connection to said communities, I don’t know where I’d be,” he
said.
The van’s visibility among those in need may also reduce the stigma
surrounding methadone. In 2024, a vocal group of Guilford residents
strongly opposed the construction of a methadone clinic run by the APT
Foundation, citing concerns about the site’s proximity to schools. The
clinic opened with the support of Guilford’s first selectman and without
the disruptions to safety that some residents feared.
Amy Di Mauro, senior vice president for adult behavioral health services
at CHR, said the organization hasn’t encountered anyone who opposed the
van’s operations. Instead, most people she’s spoken to have been
supportive.
“There’s opportunity for dispelling myths that lead to the stigma and
discrimination of substance use disorder,” she said. “It’s not a moral
failing — it’s a medical condition.”
Growing connections
Even as the two vans begin making their way across Connecticut, the
issue of access remains contested in Congress. Two bills introduced over
the past 10 months may pull access to methadone in opposite directions.
The first, introduced last September by U.S. Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind.,
calls for the reversal of the updated SAMHSA guidelines that expanded
access to methadone treatment across the country.
“I’m not concerned about that,” Di Mauro said. “It doesn’t have enough
support.”
On the other hand, bipartisan legislation spearheaded by Sens. Ed
Markey, D-Mass., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., in June would allow some doctors
to prescribe methadone to patients for direct pickup at a pharmacy.
Howell believes the bill would further “normalize” methadone as a form
of treatment, as the two other FDA-approved medications for opioid use
disorder can be prescribed for pick-up.
Di Mauro is more hesitant, wondering if further deregulation would
dissuade people from seeking “clinical services, recovery services and
full person care, not just the medication.”
In the meantime, CHR’s team looks forward to the launch of their van on
Tuesday. They anticipate a small client pool in the first few months of
operation but expect this number to grow as word of mouth encourages
more clients to register with the van.
“It’s really just going to take a village,” Laymon said. “That’s the
only way to attack the problem: keep initiating new things like this,
fresh ideas, because that’s going to make the process easier for
people.”
Long-term funding remains up in the air. The cost of running the van is
similar to the cost of running a brick-and-mortar clinic, with the added
expense of mileage, according to Di Mauro. But she added that CHR has
made space for the van in their budget, even after the organization
receives its last parcel of opioid settlement funds in 2027.
Perez-Suarez is hopeful that CHR’s strong relationships with communities
in the northeastern region will encourage more hesitant individuals to
register for the van’s services. Her clients often tell her about their
reluctance to get lab tests or go to the hospital, where they say they
feel treated as addicts rather than patients.
“So I think something like this is really going to help further get rid
of that stigma,” she said, referring to the van. “I think the reason the
death rate is so high is because they don’t feel connected to anyone.”
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