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Imagine a 17-year-old girl in foster care — exhausted, scared, and alone — looking for safety, shelter, and a place to finally breathe. Instead, she’s surrounded by violence, drugs, and the constant fear that no one is coming to help. She watches as friends disappear without warning, as overdoses happen in rooms down the hall, and as the very adults meant to protect her turn away. Unfortunately, for some teens in Alameda County, this wasn’t only an imagination. It was reality.
An article on the city of Hayward’s official website tells the story of how the Alameda County Assessment Center, a facility meant to provide temporary refuge for foster and runaway youth, became the site of dozens of police calls involving missing minors, assaults, suspected trafficking, and repeated opioid-related overdoses. A place designed for healing had become a hub for harm.
This kind of breakdown is especially dangerous as opioid use and overdose rates continue to rise among adolescents nationwide. According to the CDC, teen overdose deaths have nearly doubled in recent years, driven largely by synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
The Alameda County Assessment Center is not an isolated incident. Across the county and much of California, access to age-appropriate opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment for teenagers is limited, often underfunded, and rarely publicized.
According to the California Health Care Foundation, most substance use treatment programs in the state are designed for adults, and only a small fraction are structured to meet the unique psychological, social, and clinical needs of adolescents.
Even online, the path to help is skewed. Search Google for “opioid addiction resources for teens,” and the first four search results are sponsored ads — treatment centers tailored for youth, but often private and financially inaccessible to those who need them the most. Ironic.
These teen- and young adult-focused programs may appear plentiful, but in reality, they cater to a sliver of the population: those with insurance, parental support, and stability, not the abandoned, fearful, and lost teens who need guidance and support the most.
In Alameda County, despite having one of the highest concentrations of behavioral health providers in California, there is a critical lack of coordinated care for adolescents facing both addiction and mental health challenges. Many teens in need of support face long waitlists, high costs, and services that aren’t equipped to meet their developmental needs.
This gap in the system is the crack that far too many teens fall through every year. As opioids become more accessible and overdose rates continue to rise, young people need resources that are not only available but also accessible, empathetic, and designed with them in mind.
Yet, instead of help, these teens are often met with stigma and silence.
Society needs to acknowledge and recognize that while we should not be supporting teenage opioid addiction, we need to be supporting teenagers experiencing opioid addiction. That’s when they need us the most. They need us not to turn away, but to show up.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.
