Kalispel tribe to open downtown Spokane opioid clinic this fall

When the Kalispel Tribe owns its opioid treatment clinic in the heart of downtown Spokane, it will be open to everyone.

It could not be done any other way, said tribal chairman Glen Nenema.

“We’re going to be helping everyone, not just our people. I think when people are addicted, I think it just touches everybody,” he said.

The tribe has operated Camas Health Recovery since August 2024. Located just blocks from the tribe’s Northern Quest resort and casino, the clinic primarily treats people addicted to opioids.

The clinic has been “unfortunately very successful,” said tribal Vice Chairman Curt Holmes.

Last year, the tribe expanded to a mobile clinic treating opioid use disorder in downtown Spokane, and with demand for services ever expanding, the tribe will open a permanent clinic in the city this fall.

The need for the mobile clinic “grew so fast” in the past year, said tribal Chief Financial Officer Jason Beasley.

“We knew there was a need, but it went so fast, the need bigger than what we had anticipated,” Beasley said. “There’s a significant amount of services being provided right now. So what this will allow us to do is expand on those services, and help more people.”

The tribe recently purchased a building on Pacific Avenue in downtown Spokane. It will house behavioral health counselors, certified peer support specialists and meeting rooms to connect patients with job training and housing assistance services.

Construction will soon begin on a 3,000-square-foot Medications for Opioid Use Disorder clinic west of the existing building. With plans to open in the fall, this clinic is estimated to serve hundreds of residents.

Addiction has hit the Kalispel tribe hard over the past fifty years. After fighting in Vietnam, many men in that generation came back to the reservation with PTSD and a dependence on alcohol.

Nenema, who is the longest serving tribal chairman in the United States, decided to face his own addiction to alcohol several years after leading his tribe.

“Something got me in. I decided one day I was it, put that bottle down, and that was it,” he said.

After three weeks of sobriety Nenema realized he needed help if he was going to avoid relapse.

“I called someone and got help. That’s what we want for other people too,” he said.

Now nearing fifty years as chairman and nearly that much time sober, Nenema hopes his legacy is the health care provided by the tribe.

The issue is also personal for Holmes, who has helped to spearhead the tribe’s expanded focus on treatment for opioids in recent years.

At 15 years old, Holmes’ son fell off the reservation’s dance pavilion 20 feet and hit headfirst onto concrete. With his son nearly dying that night, Holmes sat with him at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center after surgery to save his life.

He survived, but at a cost. In retrospect, Holmes believes his son was addicted to opioids before leaving the hospital.

“It’s really hard as a father to watch your child go through something and to feel so utterly helpless. You know, as a dad, you’re supposed to fix things, you’re supposed to be there. And there was literally nothing I could do,” he said.

Soon, the teenager switched to fentanyl and took to selling drugs on the reservation to fuel his habit – spreading his disease to other tribal members.

“Somebody he sold drugs to overdosed and died. He got charged, and so I lost my son,” Holmes said.

With his son in prison, Holmes wanted to ensure the anguish his family has felt will not happen to anyone else.

“This disease – it doesn’t care if you’re tribal or nontribal. We’re all in this together,” he said.

“My belief is that God doesn’t give me something so that I can hoard it and amass a big collection or a pile of wealth. God blesses people so that you can bless others,” he said. “And I firmly believe that the tribe came into resources, and we were doing good stuff, and he keeps giving us resources to keep doing good stuff and to help people.”

According to Nenema, the tribe’s goal in everything they do has been for the health of themselves and others.

The money from the casino in Airway Heights was used to build a wellness center on the reservation. Serving both native and non-native individuals, the center medical and dental clinic, physical therapy, daycare, swimming pools and a rock-climbing wall.

Many tribal elders had gone decades without dental work when the center first opened, Nenema said.

“When that center opened, we had twenty-some elders. Now we have almost 80. Our life expectancy has gone up so much,” he said.

The Kalispel is small compared to some other tribes in the region. Nenema estimates there 500 tribal members. About a third live on the reservation in Usk, a third in Spokane and the rest elsewhere across the country.

The clinics are a way for the tribe to give back to the communities in and around Spokane that have visited Northern Quest and helped make those services possible.

“Watching a lot of our people die at a young age in their 30s and 40s, elders would tell me we need to do something. We need to break that cycle,” Nenema said.