Seattle expands mobile and community-based opioid treatment and overdose-prevention services in 2025 investment plan

The Seattle Human Services Department and Public Health—Seattle & King County outlined a package of 2025 investments on June 11 intended to expand access to medication for opioid use disorder and community-based overdose prevention across the city.

"The new investments will also guarantee that more than 5,000 Seattle residents will be served with, overdose prevention and medicine for opioid use disorder annually with more than a thousand new patients engaged in treatment," said Anne Gorman, senior policy adviser, Human Services Department, during the committee briefing.

The council committee heard that the 2025 public-health contract reallocates existing city funding to prioritize opioid and behavioral-health needs directed by Mayor Bruce Harrell. HSD told the committee that the line items dedicated to substance-use-disorder (SUD) access and treatment increased by more than 200% inside the public-health contract, and that adding in other HSD investments raises the total increase to more than 300% compared with 2024.

Public Health staff described a set of new and expanded programs intended to reach people who are unhoused or otherwise hard to engage in clinic settings. David Sapienza, an addiction medicine physician with Public Health—Seattle & King County, said the plan includes a new high-intensity street outreach team that will provide same-day access to long-acting injectable buprenorphine in the field. "The team will consist of a nurse who will administer the injections and a community health worker," Sapienza said. He described minimum impact…