This story has been update to reflect additional information from the City of Philadelphia.
A new batch of organizations will receive $2.2 million in grants from the city’s 2025 Opioid Prevention and Community Healing Fund (OPCH), after what some groups called delayed and unclear communication. This year’s list of 22 organizations looks different from last year’s, as only some grantees were reinvited to apply.
In the past, the fund included both $100,000 grants and $20,000 grants. The Office of Public Safety said that only groups that formerly received the larger amount were invited to reapply for this round.
This year applications were invite-only, and funding decisions were made exclusively by the city. Prior rounds involved a community-led process and any eligible organization could apply.
The first two cycles of the OPCH fund were managed in part by the Scattergood Foundation, which facilitated the participatory funding process for selecting grant recipients. The 2024 funding – $3.1 million in total for 43 groups – came out of opioid settlement money that Philadelphia received from a federal lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors. The latest round draws from the city budget and not from the opioid settlement pot, according to the city.
Group leaders who were invited to apply this year said application instructions did not arrive until May – too late for most groups to plan for summer activities. Those who were not said the change left them scrambling for other ways to fundraise for programming.
Courage Medicine, a health center on Kensington Avenue with a focus on HIV prevention and other harm reduction services, has received the larger category of OPCH funding for the past two years. They were invited to reapply this year, but were not selected.
“We’re disappointed that we didn’t receive the funding this year, and that Scattergood wasn’t part of this year’s process,” said director Trisha Acri.
The clinic has had to backfill through donors and other funding sources. It’s been a hardship on top of losing federal funding due to new Trump administration policies, Acri said.
The city's press release about the new funding round notes that proposals were evaluated based on "demonstrated impact, alignment with community priorities, organizational capacity, and feasibility of proposed activities, with community perspectives also informing the final selections."
Office of Public Safety spokesperson Jennifer Crandall said the process was conducted by that office's staff.
Britt Carpenter of outreach group Philly Unknown Project had formerly received the smaller grant amount and was not invited to reapply. When he saw the announcement last week, he wrote a social media post describing the decision as “a blatant disrespect to the organizations who have committed and devoted their time to the streets and helping those who the city has turned its back on for decades.”
He argues the new decision is part of a broader Parker administration strategy to cut harm reduction services such as naloxone distribution and wound care. The city is poised to enforce a mobile services ban that limits when and where groups can provide medical services, food and other aid.
Carpenter’s post mentioned other former grantees that did not receive funds this time around, such as Operation Save Our Streets, Operation In My Backyard, and the Everywhere Project.
“They’re making it even harder because they’re taking money from grantees who are out on the forefront, doing the jobs the city should be doing,” he said.
The loss of the OPCH funding forced Carpenter to “drastically cut back” on his workforce development program, he said.
Crandall did not explain why groups that formerly received the smaller funding amount were not invited to apply for the 2025 OPCH fund.
Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer made that decision because he wanted to “maintain continuity in service delivery,” Crandall wrote in an email.
The city expects to open another round of opioid prevention grants later this year, which will include both “programmatic and capacity-building” investments according to Crandall. In prior rounds of the OPCH fund, “programmatic” grantees received $100,000 apiece, and “capacity-building” grantees, such as Carpenter, received $20,000.
Former capacity-building grantee Cristina Mancini, who helps oversee food distribution and other activities at St. Marks Church in Frankford, said the city never communicated these changes to her.
“I honestly don’t know anything about how this current round transpired,” Mancini said. “We’re kind of waiting and watching to see how everything pans out.”
Mancini said she was confused by the $2.2 million listed on the July awards announcement, because in a March announcement the office promised $3.6 million for the OPCH fund.
The city said the $3.6M allocated for the grant program included administrative fees for the fiduciary, technical assistance training and other costs, while the $2.2 million is the amount going directly to grantees.
For now, Mancini said she’ll keep planning the group’s upcoming overdose awareness vigil in August, while looking for alternate funding streams.
“The work we do will continue unabated,” she said. “We just have to retool in-house and seek out new avenues and means of funding. We’ll continue to adapt to the needs of the community.”
See the full list of 2025 Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund grantees below.
- The African American Male Wellness Agency
- AMANDLA, Inc. (Safe-Hub Philadelphia)
- Black Muslim Men United
- Broad Street Love
- By Faith Eternal Health Care
- CADEkids
- Fab Youth Philly
- Face to Face
- Homeless Advocacy Project
- Housing, Opportunity, Purpose and Education, Inc. (HOPE, Inc.)
- Hunting Park Green
- The Lighthouse, Inc.
- Mercy Neighborhood Ministries, Inc.
- Mother of Mercy House
- Musicopia
- NewView Institute
- North Philly Project
- Ordinarie Heroes
- PB&J (Philly Bridge & Jawn)
- Philly House
- The Reawakening Agency
- Uplift Center for Grieving Children
Emily Rizzo contributed to this story
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