Opioid Settlement Case Studies: Real Programs, Budgets & Outcomes
This library documents how communities across the country are using opioid settlement and abatement funds to expand prevention, treatment, recovery, and overdose prevention services. Each case study profiles a single program in a single jurisdiction and details its funding, partners, design, and outcomes, from same-day buprenorphine care in Burlington, Vermont, to a rural walk-in recovery center in Walker County, Alabama.
Use the filters to sort by settlement category, service type, population served, community type, state, and annual funding, then open any profile to review the budget, results, and lessons learned. Each model is presented as a reference point rather than a prescription, so you can adapt the elements that fit your community's needs and capacity.
One Shared Settlement Dashboard for Colorado's 19 Regions
19 regional councils across Colorado will share one public dashboard linking opioid settlement spending to local outcomes, built by a university data team.
Fort Lyon: Recovery Housing for Coloradans on a Former Army Post and VA Campus
464 residents lived at The Fort in 2025, a peer-led campus in Bent County, CO where people can stay up to two years to rebuild IDs, income and housing.
Therapeutic Mentoring for Rural Middle and Early High School Boys
In Gunnison County, CO, eight to 12 boys per cycle meet weekly with a therapist and are matched with paid mentors who have their own recovery experience.
Monarch Sober Living Homes: Women's Recovery Housing
A $1.2 million capital purchase put an 11-bed women's recovery home in Wheat Ridge, CO under a 15-year contract that recaptures funds if the operator exits.
Paid Therapy for a Rural County’s Uninsured and Underinsured Residents
144 Gunnison County, Colorado residents received scholarships for up to 10 paid therapy sessions in 2025, each choosing a therapist from a network of 57 local clinicians.
19 Local Governments Pooling Settlement Funds
Three Colorado counties pool settlement dollars from 19 local governments under one council, backed by the first fiscal-agency relationship policy among Colorado's regional councils.
Bluestem: Family Recovery Housing Preventing Foster Care Placement
Six townhomes in Lakewood, CO are designed to house whole families for a year of treatment and family therapy, with the aim of keeping children out of foster care while a parent recovers. The first family is expected in summer 2026.
How Six Rural Counties Decide What to Fund
64 community interviews told six rural Colorado counties what to fund, and the resulting plan won a $1.2 million award on two part-time facilitator salaries.
Recovery-Friendly Workplace Certification for Employers
124 employers across 25 Colorado counties signed on to a recovery-friendly certification, built on a $500,000 opioid settlement infrastructure award.
Low-Barrier Therapy Scholarships for Rural Recovery
231 people in four rural Colorado counties applied for therapy scholarships that pay $125 a session and ask for no diagnosis and no proof of a problem.
Funded Fellowships to Grow a Rural Behavioral Health Workforce
Western Colorado University pays tuition for 6 to 8 graduate fellows a year to run prevention projects in Gunnison County, CO, on a $216,600 settlement award over two years.