HR-2695-119
Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Sponsored by Brittany Pettersen (D-CO)
What it does
This bill would reauthorize the Building Communities of Recovery (BCOR) program through fiscal year 2030. The program, administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provides grants to community nonprofit organizations. Those grants fund the development and delivery of coordinated recovery support services for individuals with substance use disorders at the community and statewide level.
Who benefits
Individuals with substance use disorders who rely on community-based recovery support services. Nonprofit organizations that receive BCOR grants and depend on continued federal funding to operate. Community recovery coaches, peer support specialists, and other recovery support workers whose jobs are funded through these grants. Family members of people in recovery who benefit from coordinated support networks. Rural and underserved communities that may lack alternative funding sources for recovery services.
Who is hurt
Taxpayers who bear the cost of continued federal spending on the program. Competing grant applicants or programs within SAMHSA that may face resource constraints if discretionary funding is limited. Organizations that provide recovery services outside the nonprofit grant structure and do not qualify for BCOR funding. States or localities that might otherwise develop independent funding mechanisms if federal grants were not available.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that the U.S. recorded over 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2023, and that community-based recovery support services — such as peer coaching and recovery housing navigation — are a cost-effective complement to clinical treatment. They contend that the BCOR program fills a documented gap by funding nonprofits that provide the non-clinical "wrap-around" services that help individuals sustain long-term recovery, and that allowing the program to lapse would disrupt services for vulnerable populations already in recovery.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that reauthorizing the program without a rigorous evaluation of its outcomes extends spending on services whose effectiveness has not been independently verified at scale. They contend that federal grant programs can create dependency in local nonprofits, crowding out more sustainable community and private funding models, and that decisions about recovery support infrastructure are better left to states and localities under the 10th Amendment rather than directed through federal categorical grants.