MILFORD, PA — Pike County now plans to devote a portion of the county’s annual Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to a growing heroin-abuse problem, the commissioners announced on February 3.

The state and federally funded CDBG money has traditionally gone to community facilities or individual housing restoration benefiting low-income residents.

During the last round of grant allocations in September, CDBG administrator Marvin Brotter proposed block-grant portions including $189,000 for housing rehabilitation, $10,000 for planning, $27,500 for administration, and $23,241 for public services.

Last Wednesday, Brotter chaired a public hearing on the county’s plan to amend its CDBG appropriations to devote $26,250 toward expanded drug and alcohol counseling services for the Pike County Correctional Facility. He said that figure represented the cost of one home rehabilitation.

Commissioner Rich Caridi, who once served as warden at the county prison, said the money would fund one new half-time counseling position, to be provided through Catholic Social Services. Pike’s prisoner counseling services include both residential and post-release counseling during parole.

The commissioners will vote on the amended grant budget on February 17.

In related business, the commissioners also approved an intergovernmental agreement with Wayne County to house Pike prisoners for $65 per day.

Caridi said the agreement is necessary, in part because of an increasing local crime rate. When Caridi was warden, he said the average daily population was 40 to 60 prisoners. Currently it averages 140 to 160, he said.

Additionally, the number of female inmates has increased. With segregation required and jail housing in modules of 20 units, “sometimes we need to house them elsewhere… We have limited female housing,” and Wayne County has space, he said.

Pike also houses federal detainees, for which it receives $83 per day. Despite the cost-revenue advantage, Caridi said that decisions to move female prisoners to Wayne County are not related to making space for federal detainees.

Commissioners Chair Matt Osterberg said the state is now “looking at” cooperative state-local task forces to find solutions. “It’s a serious epidemic in the community, and Pike County alone can’t do it,” he said.

In other business, the commissioners heard from Maryann Monte, representing the Greater Pike Community Foundation, which has begun to build a pool of endowments and gifts, from which it is awarding a variety of annual grants of up to $2,500 for area not-for-profits, excluding only ambulance services.

Monte suggested that people in a position to make endowments consider the foundation as a way to increase the endowment’s growth.