Fort Wayne Opioid Settlement Grants Fund Harm Reduction and Grief Support Programs

Every Tuesday at the corner of Coliseum and Goshen in Fort Wayne, a branded van pulls up across from the bus station, right in the center of several low-cost highway hotels. People spot it from balconies and make their way downstairs like old friends arriving for a familiar ritual. They come for free lunches, socks, hygiene items—and if requested, naloxone kits and fentanyl test strips.

This is Project.ME, a peer-led harm reduction organization founded seven years ago by Aisha Diss, who built its outreach and recovery programs from her own experience navigating substance use and the criminal legal system for over a decade. In November, the organization received $100,000 from Fort Wayne's first round of Opioid Settlement Fund grants, part of a strategic approach to funding that prioritizes community organizations willing to meet people at any stage of recovery—even in active addiction.

"Our goal is meaningful engagement with people who use drugs, because that is a big gap in services that exist," Diss said. "People can enter into recovery and still be using substances, and people get to define that for themselves."

Harm Reduction Meets Housing Instability

The location of Project.ME's Tuesday lunch outreach is deliberate. The intersection captures a transient population: bus riders, people staying in budget motels, individuals cycling through periods of housing instability. Along with meals, the organization offers supplies that mitigate immediate risk—clean syringes are available on request, though the organization does not proactively distribute needles. The van operates under the principle that supporting someone in active addiction is not enabling; it's preserving their dignity and their life until they're ready for traditional treatment pathways.

Diss describes substance use disorder as a spectrum, from chaotic active use to long-term abstinence-based recovery. Project.ME's role, she said, is to support people across that entire continuum without judgment.

"We get kind of a hard rap for harm reduction," Diss acknowledged. "But while people are making the decision to continue using drugs, we believe that they deserve dignified support just like anybody else does."

The $100,000 grant will help offset a dramatic reduction in state funding—Project.ME's annual contract from Indiana dropped to $5,000 for supplies, down from the $3,000-$5,000 per month the organization typically spends. But the settlement funds will also enable a new program: housing scholarships for people seeking independent apartments who need help with down payments, or those trying to secure beds in recovery residences.

"With all the other tangible resources we have, we've just never had funds to help with housing," Diss said. "So that's been a little bit of a gamechanger."

Low-Barrier Community Recovery

The Recovery Cafe, another $100,000 grantee, takes a similar harm reduction-forward approach but anchored in community and routine. Executive Director Ryan Marsden, who founded the Cafe from his own experience with substance use disorder, describes it as a safe space where people can explore what a substance-free life looks like—without being required to already live one.

Members gather for dinner three nights a week (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday). Before the meal, staff share announcements and the group goes around the room sharing gratitudes. "I'm grateful for family, community, sobriety," one member said during a recent Tuesday gathering.

The Cafe's only rule is safe behavior that doesn't put others at risk. They don't mandate 100 percent abstinence, recognizing that recovery pathways look different for different people. Marsden credits this inclusive, low-barrier model for creating the kind of environment where people feel comfortable returning—even when they're struggling.

"During my own recovery, all the stigma and all the different pathways I attempted, some of those pathways obviously weren't for me and I felt like may have even been a little bit harmful," Marsden said. "The key reason that I wanted to create the Cafe was to be inclusive and low barrier."

Both Project.ME and the Recovery Cafe operate from a conviction that the harm reduction approach is not permissive—it's pragmatic. Indiana's statewide data supports this. Naloxone distribution and syringe exchange programs expanding across the state over the past several years have contributed to a 20 percent drop in overdose deaths statewide. In Allen County, where Fort Wayne is located, fatal overdoses decreased 12 percent from 2024 to 2025, and non-fatal overdoses dropped 23 percent, according to Fort Wayne Police Department data.

Marsden credited those declines to the proliferation of harm reduction services and the slow erosion of stigma around substance use disorders. "We want to continue doing what works," he said.

The Grief No One Talks About

Fort Wayne's settlement funding also addresses a dimension of the opioid crisis that rarely receives direct resources: grief. Stillwater Hospice received $25,000 to expand bereavement services for families navigating loss related to substance use.

Laura Guerrero, Stillwater's Bereavement Coordinator, describes the grief profile of these families as uniquely complex. There's guilt ("maybe I didn't do enough"), relief (a response that itself triggers shame), and the isolating weight of disenfranchised grief—loss that society doesn't recognize as socially acceptable or openly mournable.

"We have individuals that struggle with increased feelings of guilt, that maybe they didn't do enough to help their loved one or maybe they could have done something to prevent the loss," Guerrero said. "Sometimes we have individuals that feel guilt because they also are feeling a sense of relief, just due to maybe all the challenges or changes in relationship that they had with their loved one while they were using."

Marsden, from his own family's experience during his active addiction, said the grief often begins long before an overdose occurs. "My family was fully prepared for the fact that I could pass away at any given time," he said. "So there's grief before, there's grief during the recovery process."

Opioids change behavior rapidly. Family members describe feeling like they've lost their loved one long before death—grieving the relationship, the trust, the version of the person who existed before addiction took hold. And for those in recovery, there's often parallel grief for the life they had before substance use—jobs lost, relationships destroyed, years spent obtaining drugs instead of building a future.

Stillwater utilizes Alan Wolfelt's companion model of bereavement, which positions the counselor as a non-judgmental guide rather than an expert directing the process. The model emphasizes meeting people where they are in their grief, and Stillwater incorporates movement therapies like restorative yoga and dance alongside traditional talk therapy.

"Going back to stigma, someone maybe doesn't feel as comfortable talking about their loss, but might feel more comfortable writing about it, or doing one of our programs that's more geared towards processing through your body and how grief impacts us physically," Guerrero said.

She also emphasized that overdose loss doesn't discriminate. "Unfortunately, this can happen to anyone," she said. "We see clients from all different kinds of spiritual, cultural, religious, socioeconomical status. It's really across the board."

Settlement Funds as Community Investment

Diss praised Fort Wayne's approach to distributing settlement funds, contrasting it with neighboring communities that have allocated money to law enforcement. "While I guess I can understand a little bit the rationale, it's a little harder in my head to rationalize that," she said. "Because it should really be the services that are there to support people and not create barriers or be punitive."

The city held a second round of grant applications in early 2026 and expects to continue the process every six months for the foreseeable future. By directing funds to peer-led harm reduction, low-barrier recovery spaces, and grief support, Fort Wayne is betting that the path out of the opioid crisis runs through the communities most directly affected—not through enforcement or punishment, but through meeting people exactly where they are.

"If somebody says 'you know what? I really don't want to live like this anymore. I would like to seek out inpatient treatment,' we definitely help them navigate that," Diss said. "And while people are making the decision to continue using drugs, we believe that they deserve dignified support just like anybody else does."