Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Health Outreach Opioid topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council reviews contract extension with Rutgers to continue street‑level substance‑use outreach using opioid settlement funds
Summary
The council reviewed a proposed contract extension with Rutgers to continue a mobile medical unit providing behavioral health, wound care and on‑site prescriptions to the unsheltered population; staff said the $535,000 contract would be funded with opioid settlement dollars and would expand teams in the community.
City staff told the Newark Municipal Council on Dec. 17 about a contract with Rutgers to continue and expand a medical outreach unit serving the unsheltered population.
The initiative, launched earlier in the year, provides a mobile medical team led by a psychiatric nurse practitioner, a social worker and a licensed substance‑use counselor supervised by a medical director. Staff said the team goes to locations with high overdose rates and provides wound care, behavioral health services, psychiatric evaluations and on‑the‑spot prescriptions.
The administration said the contract extension would cost approximately $535,000 for one year and that the funds would come from opioid settlement dollars rather than city general funds. “That money...it's not city funds. We're using opioid settlement dollars to provide support to those teams,” a staff member said in the meeting.
Officials reported the mobile unit is currently based downtown (Metro area) and has seen hundreds of residents; the extension would fund continued operations and the addition of an extra team to expand geographic coverage. No formal vote on the contract extension was captured in the provided transcript excerpt.
Councilmembers asked for the contract amount; staff provided the $535,000 figure and confirmed the funding source. The council recorded support for moving the item forward as a professional services contract on the agenda and noted the public‑health priority of expanding outreach to areas with significant overdose activity.
