Opioid Unified Response in Santa Barbara County's grant program aims to award thousands of dollars to local organizations tackling the opioid crisis.
"We have a lot of folks who have all kinds of street drug habits and every street drug you can imagine is cut with fentanyl and cut with opioids," said Christopher Reilly, LMFT, Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara Program Director.
Reilly says many of their patients struggle with opioid addiction, including the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
"I would say a third of our overall patient population has some kind of substance use issue and therefore some sort of complication with fentanyl," he added.
According to the Santa Barbara County Coroner, someone in Santa Barbara County dies from an overdose involving opioids twice a week, and that trend is growing. Countywide, deaths involving fentanyl increased from 12 in 2017 to 112 in 2023.
Jack Mohr with the Santa Barbara County Health Department hopes the county's new Opioid Unified Response grant program will help reduce those numbers.
"We're funding prevention-related work just to make folks aware of potential harms of opioid use. We're also funding harm reduction programs and medication-assisted treatment programs and support," Mohr said.
The $500,000 of grant money comes from the county’s $5 million Opioid Settlement Fund.
"We know we have really effective programs in the county, and we're hoping that community partner organizations are going to be that link between community members needing support and our programs," Mohr said.
Local organizations that receive a piece of the grant funding will be given $50,000 to $100,000 for treatment, prevention, and harm reduction programs.
"There are many ways to attack this problem, and I think the $50,000 to $100,000 is welcome and certainly can make a meaningful impact," Reilly said.
Applications will be accepted until March 10 and chosen organizations will receive funding by June 2025.
For those struggling with addiction now, Reilly says you're not alone.
"Help is available immediately if you want it, and it's available in a number of different places," he said.
To contact Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara, click here.
To apply for grant funding, visit countyofsb.org.
