The Steady Collective

Steady Collective is dedicated to promoting the wellness of people who use drugs through empowerment and respectful collaboration. Our goal is to improve overall community health by reducing the rate of drug overdose and the spread of infectious disease with education, advocacy, and direct services. Many of our participants live in or around public housing units, many others are unhoused or unstably housed; nearly all are low-income. In our public housing outreach site specifically, we saw an 85% increase in the number of BIPOC participants in our first year of providing services. We serve some of the most marginalized, at-risk, and targeted PWUD in a

Southern Appalachian area that for many years saw the fastest growing overdose rate, and alarming and growing Hep C and HIV rates. Steady Collective currently collects and tracks distribution of overdose prevention (test strips) and overdose death prevention (naloxone) supplies at every outreach encounter. In 2022, Steady Collective has seen a 132% increase in overdose reversal facilitated through our narcan distribution, a 166% increase in narcan provided to participants, and a 600% increase in used needle return rate.