The short answer
The national opioid settlements are distributing tens of billions of dollars to states and local governments over roughly two decades. The settlement agreements require the large majority of funds to be spent on opioid remediation, and the approved use lists explicitly include expanding treatment access, supporting warm handoff and engagement programs, and harm reduction. A mobile MAT unit or harm reduction vehicle is one of the most direct, visible ways a jurisdiction can turn settlement dollars into treatment access, and many state and county spending plans name mobile units specifically.
How the money flows
Every state negotiated its own split between the state and its counties and cities, and its own decision process: some run everything through a state council, others push most funds to counties, and many do both. That means the door you knock on depends on where you are. The common structures are a state opioid settlement advisory council, county level allocation processes, and grant rounds run by state health or behavioral health departments.
How programs actually get funded
- Watch your state and county settlement processes: many publish spending plans, hold public comment periods, and run application rounds
- Frame the ask as access: a mobile unit takes treatment to the people the fixed clinic never sees, which is exactly the gap settlement funds exist to close
- Bring a real budget: a line item vehicle quote makes a proposal concrete and fundable, and we provide those before your funding is secured
- Pair it with operations: settlement decision makers fund programs, not just vehicles, so present staffing and services alongside the build
What these vehicles look like
The two most common settlement funded builds are mobile MAT units, with a secure safe, dispensing window, and counseling space designed around the DEA mobile requirements, and harm reduction vehicles, with supply storage, testing stations, and a dispensing window designed to be approachable on the block. Both are builds we do, and both have delivered examples in the field.
