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Providing hope and a few beds for addicts

As heroin addicts try to get help, many Northeast Ohio facilities are out of beds and dealing with long waiting lists. There's a great need for more resources.

As heroin addicts try to get help, many Northeast Ohio facilities are out of beds and dealing with long waiting lists.

There's a great need for more resources.

Jeannie Brandt's oldest grandchild, Robbie, never overcame his addiction to heroin.

"Robbie's been gone for five years and we've been thrown in a world that we never thought we'd be affiliated with," she told WKYC Channel 3's Alyssa Raymond. "We always feel...if at least we could save one."

To try to do just that, his famly started Robbie's Voice.

"We feel that it's a mission that's been put on us, and there are so many people here in Cleveland working towards it," says Brandt.

On Tuesday, WTAM 1100's Mike Trivisonno invited families, law enforcement, and politicians to join him on a broadcast dedicated to beating the heroin epidemic.

He opened the show by declaring, "We're going to try to bring some light to the heroin problem in the United States of America, Ohio, and here in Northeast Ohio." You can listen to the whole Town Hall show here.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine was one of those who joined the panel with Trivisonno. "We think we're losing 8 people a day in Ohio. I'm going to tell you I think those statistics are way low."

Camelia Carter knows for a fact they're low. Just this year, she lost her son. "It was a heroin fentanyl methadone overdose that finally got him," she told Alyssa. "People are dying to get into beds."

Plans to bring more beds to Northeast Ohio are in the works.

Primary Purpose Center in Sheffield Township just opened a 68 bed facility a few weeks ago.

The Erie County Health Department says they're working on opening a new, 24-hour medically supervised facility in July.

There are also talks in Avon about converting existing buildings into recovery houses.

"We do need facilities that are going to work to retrain them and to retrain their brains," says Brandt.

The need goes way beyond that to pleas for harsher punishments for dealers, to desperate demands for a state of emergency.

It's the war we know we're still fighting.

Find a treatment center near you by clicking on here.

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