Troy Amundsen
Clay County Commission
Dan Haglund
After 13 full months at the new north Moorhead Withdrawal Management/Detox facility, the numbers don’t lie.
The need was great, and the expansion was worth it.
Troy Amundsen, Detox Unit director, and Andrew Loewe, RN supervisor, presented the department’s annual update for the Clay County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday in Moorhead.
“It’s been kind of an exciting year because we’ve been there a little over a year in that building,” Amundsen said.
From 2024 to 2025, the facility in essence had doubled the number of beds available. And so the number of clients has nearly mirrored that, with some months more than doubling the numbers from the previous years.
For instance, October 2025 totaled 273 facility admissions while October 2024 had 133 admissions.
Amundsen said it’s pretty common to have 18 to 20 individuals there each day.
Broken down even further, the total number of client admissions in 2025 was 2,638, with 1,598 coming from the North Dakota side of the river, 741 from Clay County, 296 from other Minnesota counties, and three from other states.
Out of the 2,638 individuals served last year, 1,590 (60 percent) are classified as homeless.
Amundsen’s department recently added two registered nurses and is in the process of hiring a licensed practical nurse and a full-time tech, bringing them up to full staff.
The new hires arrive in concert with a program expansion as well.
Part of that expansion include the Certified Peer Recovery Specialist (CPRS) positions. Amundsen said the position is now required by the Department of Human Services. He said he’s covering this mandate at present with one already hired individual and two pending with background checks.
These hires represent individuals who have lived experience with mental health or substance use recovery who help provide tailored, strength-based support to help others achieve their recovery goals. They provide mentorship and advocacy for the facility residents.
Amundsen also added that his department has numerous staff members with variable hours in order to offset the time blocks not staffed by full-timers.
The actual facility for the program is licensed through the Minnesota Department of Health (DHS) as a Supervised Living Facility under state rules (Chapter 4665).
But the Detox portion of the program is licensed through DHS under Minnesota Rule 32 to provide short-term, 24-hour care for the purpose of clinically managing and supporting clients through the detoxification process.
Also on site are Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LADC) services which include coordinating access to Substance Use Disorder (SUD) comprehensive assessments and providing referrals to appropriate SUD treatment programs. There are two LADCs on site. Amundsen said they also help clients with housing upon program completion.
The Withdrawal Management program is licensed through DHS under Statute 245F.
Compared to the Detox program, this license creates a greater level of medical service standards to ensure the safe assessment, monitoring and treatment of clients experiencing more acute and medically complex withdrawal symptoms.
It also contains additional program service requirements designed to support and encourage clients to engage in ongoing recovery and continued treatment services.
“When we first moved to the building, we combined our Detox with our Withdrawal Management,” Amendsen said. “What we did is we brought our Detox standards up to where our Withdrawal Management standards are, so we’re treating all the clients the same.”
Another benefit of the continuum of care package provided is that Amundsen said clients can stay in the Withdrawal facility until they can be placed into a treatment facility.
Withdrawal Management allows Minnesota clients on Medicaid or Behavioral Health Funding reimbursement. North Dakota clients are paid for via contracts with SouthEast Human Services and and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Commission chair Jenny Mongeau, Dist. 3, inquired about tracking clients from other Minnesota counties, and Amundsen said the majority of them are coming from Becker and Otter Tail counties. He also said a good number also from Beltrami County, from the hospital there, as well as Pennington County.
Amundsen said clients can come from as far away in Minnesota as the Canadian border down to the Minnesota-Iowa border.
Loewe showed one new program addition, a Humanity Scheduler, which began on Jan. 1.
This improves communication and provides immediate access to scheduling information up to six months in advance. It saves time for administrative staff by streamlining the scheduling process.
“The staff love the ease of use,” Loewe said. “It’s a big improvement from what we had before.”