Virginia Awards Record $35.2 Million in Opioid Settlement Grants to 150 Community Projects

The Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority has approved its largest single round of grant funding since its establishment in 2021, recommending over $35.2 million in opioid settlement investments to support 150 projects across the Commonwealth. The awards, approved by the OAA Grants Committee on June 15, 2026, represent a significant expansion of Virginia's effort to address the ongoing impact of the opioid crisis through locally designed, evidence-based interventions.

The funding will reach cities and counties working individually and in regional partnerships, supporting a comprehensive range of initiatives spanning prevention, treatment, recovery support, harm reduction, workforce development, and criminal justice diversion. With this announcement, the OAA has now awarded more than $150 million to local governments and state agencies since its inception—deploying settlement funds from manufacturers, distributors, and retailers at a pace that has made Virginia a national model for opioid abatement programming.

Scale and Scope of the Awards

The Fiscal Year 2027 funding round attracted 157 applications, with 150 projects ultimately receiving awards. The breakdown reveals a sophisticated approach to resource allocation: 64 Individual Distribution projects (including 13 new initiatives and 51 renewals), 79 Cooperative Partnership projects (21 new, 58 renewals), and 7 Operation STOP! projects—all renewals targeting communities where fatal overdoses disproportionately affect Black residents.

Operation STOP!—the acronym stands for Specifically Targeted Overdose Prevention—represents one of the more innovative components of Virginia's strategy. These projects partner cities and counties with community-based organizations serving Black populations to implement immediate, short-term programming aimed at reducing overdoses while simultaneously developing sustainable long-term solutions. The approach acknowledges that overdose mortality has not declined uniformly across demographic groups, requiring targeted interventions to address persistent disparities.

Senator Todd Pillion, Chair of the OAA Board of Directors, framed the awards in terms of community agency rather than top-down intervention. "Behind every one of these awards is a community that refused to accept the status quo," Pillion said in the announcement. "Virginia continues to lead the nation with its opioid settlement fund investments which are doing exactly what they were intended to do—reach people where they are, expand access to the treatment and recovery they need, and give local leaders the resources to solve problems they know better than anyone."

Notable Investments

The awarded projects span the full continuum of substance use intervention, from prevention through long-term recovery support. Several initiatives stand out for their innovative approaches or their address of historically underserved populations.

In Northern Virginia, a regional residential treatment program for adolescents represents the first such facility established in the Commonwealth—a significant gap given that young people with substance use disorders often face age-related barriers to accessing appropriate care. The program will provide structured treatment specifically designed for the developmental needs of adolescents, an approach that differs substantially from adult-oriented programming.

Three regional recovery high schools in Chesapeake, Chesterfield, and Waynesboro will expand educational options for students in recovery, offering academic programming within a substance-free environment that supports rather than jeopardizes sobriety. Recovery schools have demonstrated promising outcomes in other states, reducing relapse rates while maintaining educational progress for students who might otherwise drop out.

Multiple mobile unit programs will deliver medications for opioid and substance use disorders, therapy, outreach, and harm reduction services directly to underserved communities. These units address a critical access barrier in rural and low-density areas where fixed-site treatment facilities may be hours away. By bringing services to where people live, mobile programs can engage individuals who might never seek care at traditional treatment centers.

Jail-based treatment and re-entry programs feature prominently in the awards, reflecting growing recognition that incarceration represents a critical intervention point for addressing substance use disorders. Several county jails will expand medication-assisted treatment services, while re-entry programs will help individuals transition from correctional facilities to community-based care. Given the elevated overdose risk during the immediate post-release period, these interventions target a particularly vulnerable moment in the recovery trajectory.

Addressing Workforce and Economic Dimensions

Several awarded projects focus on the intersection of recovery and economic stability—a connection that research consistently identifies as crucial for long-term outcomes. New workforce development and recovery-to-work programs will support individuals in recovery as they seek employment, addressing both the practical barriers to job acquisition and the stigma that often prevents employers from hiring people with substance use histories.

A regional stigma reduction campaign, also among the funded initiatives, targets the attitudinal barriers that can undermine even well-designed treatment programs. Stigma affects not just individuals with substance use disorders but also the healthcare providers, employers, and community members who might otherwise support recovery. Changing these attitudes requires sustained, strategic communication—exactly the kind of population-level intervention that settlement funds can support.

Multiple projects specifically target pregnant and parenting women, a population with unique treatment needs and significant barriers to care. These initiatives recognize that maternal substance use disorders affect not just the individual but also child development and family stability, creating intergenerational consequences that extend far beyond the immediate health impacts.

The Funding Architecture

Virginia's approach to opioid settlement funds reflects a carefully structured governance model established by the General Assembly in 2021. The OAA oversees distribution of 55% of the state's total settlement funds, with 30% going directly to cities and counties and the remaining 15% to the Commonwealth. This tripartite structure ensures both centralized accountability and local autonomy, allowing communities to design programs that reflect their specific needs and circumstances.

The settlement payments, which began in 2022 from various companies involved in prescription opioid manufacturing and distribution, are expected to exceed $1.1 billion in total funding and continue through 2041. Court orders and state statute restrict the use of these funds to opioid abatement and remediation efforts, preventing diversion to unrelated budget priorities—a protection that has not always existed in other states' settlement frameworks.

National Context

Virginia's investment model has attracted attention from other states grappling with similar settlement windfalls. The emphasis on evidence-based programming, the structured application and review process, and the transparency of award decisions all represent best practices that other jurisdictions have begun to adopt.

The scale of Virginia's latest funding round—$35.2 million in a single year for a state of roughly 8.6 million residents—demonstrates the magnitude of resources that settlements have made available for addressing the opioid crisis. When multiplied across all participating states, the national investment in abatement programming reaches into the billions, creating an unprecedented opportunity to expand access to opioid addiction treatment and prevention services.

Whether this investment will achieve its intended impact remains to be seen. The opioid crisis has proven resistant to simpler interventions, and the evolving drug supply—with fentanyl analogs, nitazenes, and stimulant-opioid combinations—presents challenges that differ substantially from the prescription opioid-driven wave that prompted the litigation leading to these settlements.

What Virginia's approach offers, however, is a systematic framework for deploying resources with accountability, measurement, and adaptation built into the design. The renewal structure—58 of 79 Cooperative Partnership awards and 51 of 64 Individual Distribution awards—allows the OAA to continue funding programs that demonstrate results while discontinuing those that fail to deliver. This iterative approach, treating settlement funds as a long-term investment rather than a one-time windfall, may prove as important as the specific programs being funded.

For communities across Virginia, the $35.2 million represents more than a budget line item. It represents the possibility that the resources lost to the opioid crisis—lives, families, productivity, hope—might finally be matched by resources committed to ending it.