City of Lowell Community Opioid Outreach Program

The City of Lowell, MA Police Department (LPD) is the applicant agency
submitting a grant proposal under Category 1b: Local Applications (Suburban Area). The LPD
proposes to expand and enhance the City of Lowell’s existing Community Opioid Outreach
Program (CO-OP). The CO-OP was implemented in 2016 to try to connect persons in Lowell,
who recently overdosed, to services. The partners include LPD, Lowell Fire Department, Lowell
Health Department, Pridestar Trinity EMS, and Lowell House Addiction Treatment and
Recovery, Inc. The purpose of the project is to meet the growing needs of those with substance
use disorder (SUD) in the City of Lowell. Project activities will include adding a Recovery
Housing Specialist and bilingual Outreach Recovery Specialist to the CO-OP team. These
positions will be essential to addressing the needs of homeless individuals with SUD and better
serving individuals with SUD who speak English as a second language. The LPD is also
proposing to provide financial assistance for transitional and recovery housing with recovery
support services to individuals that qualify. Additionally, the department will continue to support
the Lowell Health Department’s Youth Outreach Specialist. This individual will assist youth and
their families impacted by substance use and work closely with the Recovery Housing Specialist
to secure housing for homeless young adults (18-26) with SUD. The LPD is also proposing to
partner with the University of Massachusetts Lowell to conduct an evaluation of the project to
understand the effect the program has on the opioid epidemic in the City of Lowell and the lives
of those struggling with SUD and housing. Expected outcomes include securing transitional or
recovery housing for 36 homeless individuals with SUD, increasing the number of individuals
that access recovery services (i.e. youth and individuals that speak a different language), and
increasing the number of individuals with SUD that make forward progress on stages of change.
The proposed project will address the following allowable activities: expand law enforcement
and first responder deflection program (80%) and provide transitional or recovery housing and
peer recovery support services (6%). 14% of the budget will also be dedicated to program
evaluation. A breakdown of the proposed budget is below. Additionally, please note that the
LPD was awarded the BJA FY 19 Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based Program in the
amount of $900,000 (2019-AR-BX-K005). This grant will end in September 2023.