Haywood County Cares — Jesse Lee Dunlap
Jesse-lee Dunlap works throughout the county in the Harm Reduction public health initiative. Their work is vital to preventing overdose in the Haywood County Detention Center and making sure that members of the community have their most basic needs met — this means connecting folks with food resources, seeking housing for unsheltered people, setting up appointments with medical providers, connecting people with job opportunities, etc.
COVID-19 has altered the reality of many folks, and the harm reduction world is no exception. Since the detention center has been closed to in-person visitation as of March 13, jail-based overdose prevention training is suspended for the time being. That has given Jesse-lee more time to follow-up on the long list of linkage-to-care items for inmates and more time to devote to connecting community members to basic resources. Much of their week is spent delivering food boxes provided by Haywood Christian ministries to Haywood County residents and partnering with organizations such as the Open Door to provide shelter for the most vulnerable members of our community.
“I’m really thankful to have employment at this time and extra thankful that my employment directly helps out folks in our community,” said Dunlap.
