The City of Philadelphia and the Scattergood Foundation are partnering to launch the second cycle of the Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund. The Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund uses national opioid settlement dollars to repair the harms inflicted on communities across Philadelphia as a result of the opioid epidemic and overdose crisis.
The Fund draws on lived experience and community participation to direct resources to organizations doing work in the following three areas: overdose prevention, community and family healing, and/or substance use prevention.
Decades of deceptive and harmful practices by pharmaceutical companies contributed to epidemic opioid use and more than one million overdose deaths in the US since 1999. Philadelphia has not been immune – more than 1,000 people have lost their lives to unintentional overdose each year since 2017. In the last several years, overdose rates have increased dramatically among communities of color. The overdose crisis has touched just about every zip code in Philadelphia, with the highest numbers of overdose deaths occurring in 19124, 19132, 19133, 19134, and 19140.
Communities and families have a right to access resources that can support prevention, treatment, recovery, and healing efforts. The Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund mobilizes impacted residents to award grants to community-based organizations doing critical and under resourced work to repair and revitalize communities.
