Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced $100 million in new grants for homelessness and opioid abuse recovery programs as part of a nationwide effort to combat the addiction epidemic.
The $100 million will be distributed as part of the new Safety Through Recovery, Engagement, and Evidence-based Treatment and Supports program, which will be managed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration within HHS.
The STREETS initiative will “fund targeted outreach, psychiatric care, medical stabilization and crisis intervention, while connecting Americans experiencing homelessness and addiction to stable housing with a clear focus on long-term recovery and independence,” according to HHS’s press release.
The new funding is a part of President Donald Trump’s Great American Recovery Initiative, announced last week with the intention of reducing rates of drug and alcohol addiction and improving access to treatment.
Substance abuse among Americans over age 12 only rose from 7.4% in 2019 to 16.8%, or 48.5 million, in 2024, according to SAMHSA.
The initiative’s announcement was met with a degree of skepticism from addiction recovery advocates across the country who were concerned that funding would be the key stumbling block impeding the promises of the president’s new task force, headed by Kennedy.
Those concerns were in part based on the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation and reinstatement of hundreds of millions in SAMHSA funding for addiction and mental health services.
Kennedy announced the new program at SAMHSA’s celebration of Prevention Day on Monday, the largest federally hosted gathering on curbing substance abuse. During his speech at the event, Kennedy said funding for homelessness and addiction treatment must go hand-in-hand to address the stumbling blocks that prevent long-term recovery.
Kennedy said the current system encourages people with severe mental illness and addiction to “cycle endlessly between sidewalks, emergency room visits, jails, and mental hospitals and shelters.”
“No one took responsibility for the whole person. No one stayed long enough to help them recover, to help them reestablish their links and teach them the lessons of how to live in a community,” Kennedy said. “That system is neither humane nor effective.”
Kennedy said the STREETS program is partially based on a program modeled in the Netherlands and is aimed at early intervention. “We try to get to that addict or people with mental health problems as as soon as possible. We find them on the street, we move them from crisis to detox to treatment to housing to employment and ultimately to connecting, reconnecting to communities and to self sufficiency,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy, as a recovering heroin addict, is also an outspoken advocate for sober housing. He says that HHS is working closely with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to improve sober housing options.
“We need to not just treat the addict and then put him back into the environment that was making him sick, or contributing, let me put it this way, contributing to his illness,” Kennedy said. “We need to give him some stability, or her some stability.”
The new funding coincides with the first allocation of SAMHSA’s 2026 block grants totaling $794 million. That includes $319 million directed toward community mental health services for adults and children with serious mental illness, as well as $475 million to the agency’s block grant programs for substance abuse prevention and treatment.
Kennedy also announced during the SAMHSA event that the administration would be allocating $10 million to outpatient treatment for adults with serious mental illness, saying that assisted outpatient treatment “reduces hospitalizations, lowers incarceration and homelessness, and it improves safety and health concerns.”
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The HHS secretary also stressed that the Trump administration will be increasing partnerships with faith-based recovery organizations.
“This is a chronic disease, it’s a physical disease, it’s a mental disease, it’s an emotional disease, but above all, it’s a spiritual disease, and we need to recognize that, and faith-based organizations play a critical role, and again, helping people reestablish their connections to community,” said Kennedy.
