The Allen County Drug and Alcohol Consortium, Inc. serves Allen County, Indiana, a community of 370,404*. The goals of the coalition are to establish and strengthen community collaboration in support of local efforts to prevent youth substance use. The coalition will achieve the goals of our project, Empowering Communities, by implementing strategies to build the knowledge, connection, and impact of community partners, parents, caring adults, and youth to reduce illegal and dangerous alcohol use and prescription drug abuse. Geographically, Allen County is the largest county east of the Mississippi River creating challenges in transportation. Allen County is the third most populous county in the state*, and is racially composed of* 80.5% Caucasian residents, 12.0% African American residents, 4.0% Asian residents, 0.1% Native American residents, and 7.3% Hispanic residents (with 3.0% in 2+ race categories). Fort Wayne and Allen County have served as a federally designated refugee center for the last 50 years, exploding with refugees in 2007. While there is a wide range of nationalities represented, as of 2010, approximately 5,000 of our citizens represent one of the largest concentrations in the world of immigrant Burmese. *as estimated for 2016 by the US Census Bureau
The City of Fort Wayne comprises 71.4% of the county's population. Allen County's median age is 35.9 years old. As of 2016, Allen County had, by count and by percentage, 26,446 (7.1%) 0 - 4 year olds; 69,917 (18.9%) 5 - 17 year olds; and 33,973 (9.2%) 18 - 24 year olds. Households married with children comprise 19.5% and single parents comprise 11.2% of the population. The median household income (2015) was $50,017 and the unemployed rate was 4.3%.
Indiana is at the heart of the Midwest with a historically strong work ethic born out of farming and companies that supported the Detroit auto industry. Generations of families have passed jobs down to the next. Fort Wayne is known as the City of Restaurants and also the City of Churches with a strong German Lutheran heritage. In our community, almost everyone is approachable and responsive, so we are able to work together through groups of people to get things done. Fort Wayne is also the "Crossroads of America," equally distant from Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, promoting commerce, including drug trafficking. The large refugee influx from 2007-2012 has impacted schools and students, burdening systems. Indiana currently ranks #1 in the country for pharmacy robberies. A few years ago a single physician, working out of Fort Wayne and in the region, had his license removed and was arrested. He was solely responsible for more than 90% of the state's opioid prescriptions. We have a medical crisis with 6,000-8,000 pain management patients scrambling to emergency rooms and heroin dealers for relief, and a plethora of youth with significantly greater access. We are targeting to reach at least 10% of 6th to 12th grade youth and their parents in year one, with a goal of 50% reach by the end of year five of this project.