New York Recruits Faith Leaders in Its Overdose Fight

On the last weekday of Recovery Month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the launch of GRACE — Guided Recovery Action through Congregational Engagement — a partnership between the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports and the Department of State's Interfaith Advisory Council. The announcement came on September 30 and had been teed up months earlier as one of the governor's 2026 State of the State proposals.

The program does not pay for treatment. It pays for training, and it leans on a specific bet about where an addiction crisis first becomes visible: not in an emergency room or on a hotline, but in a pew.

What $250,000 Actually Buys

New York has committed $250,000 to develop the curriculum and materials, which OASAS and the Department of State are writing together. The goal is narrow and practical. Faith leaders learn to recognize the signs of substance use, to talk about it in ways that reduce stigma, and to route people toward services rather than attempting to manage a crisis alone.

The initiative is already moving. State officials say 13 events have been held across New York, and that work with faith leaders has put 325 naloxone kits, roughly 1,400 Deterra drug-disposal pouches, and 370 medication lock bags into circulation.

"Faith leaders can have an enormous impact on the individuals in their congregations and the communities they serve," Hochul said in a statement. OASAS Commissioner Dr. Chinazo Cunningham framed the same logic from the clinical side, noting that people in crisis often approach someone they trust long before they call a hotline or walk into a clinic.

Part of the design is explicit about who it is for. GRACE is aimed in particular at faith-based organizations serving communities of color, which the state's own proposal language acknowledges "continue to experience disproportionate loss of life" from overdose even as New York's overall death toll has fallen.

Why Congregations, and What They Aren't

The scale of the system GRACE is plugging into is the reason the referral function matters. OASAS oversees roughly 1,700 prevention, treatment, harm-reduction, and recovery programs serving more than 731,000 people a year, including 12 state-run Addiction Treatment Centers that handle about 8,000 people annually. Those services exist; the recurring problem is the distance between a person who needs them and a door they are willing to walk through.

Secretary of State Walter T. Mosley, whose office houses the Interfaith Advisory Council, described religious institutions as "trusted pillars" and said the tools are meant to bring support closer to people who need it most.

What GRACE is not is a treatment program. Faith leaders are being trained to recognize, refer, and reduce stigma — not to diagnose or prescribe. The distinction matters in a state where medication for addiction treatment remains the clinical standard, and where a well-meaning congregation can do real harm by treating prayer as a substitute for care. The training materials are framed around connection to licensed services, not replacement of them.

The initiative also stacks on top of existing access work, including expanded medication access and transportation support for people who cannot easily reach a clinic. None of it is a new treatment modality. Most of it is logistics, which has quietly become where the overdose fight is actually won or lost.

New Yorkers looking for help, or trying to help someone else, can reach the state's HOPEline at 1-877-8-HOPENY (1-877-846-7369) at any hour, or text HOPENY to 467369.