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107 <br /> 2. Project Narrative <br /> A. Assessment of Community Need <br /> SHAC SSP serves PWUD in Orange County, NC through our weekly service distribution <br /> locations at the Inter-Faith Council (IFC) in Carrboro and the University United Methodist <br /> Church (UUMC) in Chapel Hill, as well as our satellite site of Hillsborough Pharmacy, where we <br /> stock safe injection supply and naloxone kits that can be requested by anyone who comes to <br /> the pharmacy. IFC, UUMC, and Hillsborough Pharmacy all have missions focused on serving <br /> others, with the focus of IFC being "to confront the causes and respond to the effects of <br /> poverty in our community." The Community Services Manager at IFC and several SHAC SSP <br /> volunteers speak Spanish, so we can offer services to participants who prefer or exclusively <br /> speak Spanish, making our services accessible to a broader community. We are currently the <br /> only SSP with physical locations of distribution shifts in Orange County, with NC Harm <br /> Reduction Coalition and Starting Point Rural Harm Reduction Coalition providing mobile supply <br /> distribution but no drop-in services. In this way, our program fills an important gap in services <br /> for PWUD who do not have a home address for delivery, do not have access to technology for <br /> placing mobile orders, are unaware of mobile resources, or prefer drop-in services. <br /> The below map shows locations of every incident run by Orange County EMS in the <br /> southern region of Orange County, where many calls were concentrated in calendar years <br /> 2018-2023 that involved primary or secondary impression of opioid use disorder (blue circles), <br /> according to Orange County Post Overdose Response Team, with yellow stars representing the <br /> locations of SHAC SSP's current operations. Our two primary SSP locations in Chapel Hill are <br /> within walking distance or public transportation of the majority of these local hotspots. <br /> According to NC DHHS Overdose Epidemic data "the estimated Overdose Death rate in <br /> Orange is 21.0 out of 100,000 residents in 2023, representing (projected) 32.00 people who <br /> died of an overdose," and "the Overdose ED Visit rate in Orange was 59.1 per 100,000 residents <br /> in 2024, representing 89.00 ED visits for an overdose."' Orange County is focusing their public <br /> health efforts between 2024-2028 on access to care, behavioral health including mental health <br /> 1 https://www.dph.ncdhhs.gov/programs/chronic-disease-and-injury/injury-and-violence- <br /> prevention-branch/north-carolina-overdose-epidemic-data#monthly-reports <br />