Twelve Summit County-area agencies will receive 13 grants totaling more than $1.7 million to help fight opioid use disorder and prevent overdose deaths.

The money is part of $100 million in federal grant funding being distributed by Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) across the state. 

The grants mark the fourth round of State Opioid and Stimulant Response (SOS) funds awarded via the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to support local organizations that offer prevention, harm reduction, treatment and long-term recovery services for Ohioans struggling with an opioid or stimulant use disorder.

“We are empowering our local partners to advance their work to protect communities and families from the devastating consequences of opioids and other substances,” DeWine said in a news release. “Ohio’s overdose death rate has started to decrease significantly in recent years, and our goal is to use these grants to continue this encouraging progress.”

DeWine recently announced that overdose deaths in Ohio have dropped two years in a row, including in 2023, when Ohio saw a 9% decline in overdose deaths compared to the 2% decrease seen nationwide.

In Summit County, the agencies receiving grants include:

Agency nameAward amount
Akron UMADAOP Inc.$172,865.00
ARC Recovery Services $13,750
Asian Services in Action Inc. (ASIA Inc.) $74,247.30
CHC Addiction Services $74,004.15
CHC Addiction Services $110,000
County of Summit Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services Board $343,411.23
Hope United /Tyler’s Redemption Place $92,749.15
Interval Brotherhood Homes Corp. DBA IBH Addiction Recovery $249,880.80
JoAnna House II Inc. $55,000
Relink.org $55,536.25
Summa Health $156,781.35
Summit Recovery Hub $159,884.40
Urban Ounce of Prevention Behavioral Health Services Inc. $161,627.05

A portion of the funding will be used by OhioMHAS to partner with state agencies to make naloxone and other community resources available throughout the state.

Key priorities for the SOS grants include: 

  • Reducing unintentional overdose deaths.
  • Increasing access to substance use disorder treatment.
  • Preventing youth substance use.
  • Increasing recovery support services.
  • Supporting responsible prescribing practices and statewide education efforts.
  • Promoting integrated harm reduction practices.

“While the data is trending in the right direction,” said OhioMHAS Director LeeAnne Cornyn, “we’re not out of the woods yet. Fentanyl remains a serious threat to our communities, and that’s why we are committed to thoughtfully investing these resources in projects that make a real difference, and ultimately save lives.”

Click here for more information about Ohio’s SOS grant activities.

State Opioid and Stimulant Response Grant 4.0 Award AnnouncementDownload

Editor-in-Chief (she/her)
Zake has deep roots in Northeast Ohio journalism. She was the managing editor for multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she began work as a staff photographer in 1986. Over a 20-year career, Zake worked in a variety of roles across departments that all help inform her current role as Signal Akron's editor in chief. Most recently, she was a journalism professor and student media adviser at Kent State University, where she worked with the next generation of journalists to understand public policy, environmental reporting, data and solutions reporting. Among her accomplishments was the launch of the Kent State NewsLab, an experiential and collaborative news commons that connects student reporters with outside professional partners.