Chestnut Health Systems Inc.

Chestnut Health Systems Inc., doing business as Chestnut Credit Counseling, is a Bloomington, Illinois-based nonprofit operating as a prime recipient on federal grants (49% of recent awards) and as a sub-recipient (51%), delivering behavioral health rehabilitation services, substance use disorder treatment, credit counseling, housing support, and implementation science research to vulnerable populations including individuals experiencing homelessness, veterans, Native American communities, and those involved with the criminal justice system.

The organization serves as a prime recipient on a $7 million single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract with the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Justice Services under the Pathways to Wellness, Recidivism Reduction Initiative (PWRRI), awarded April 20, 2023, with ultimate completion April 30, 2028. Task orders under PWRRI total over $5.38 million to date and cover behavioral health rehabilitation, virtual recovery environment pilots, and credit counseling for recidivism reduction among Native American populations. Chestnut also operates a portfolio of Department of Housing and Urban Development Continuum of Care (CoC) Program grants (CFDA 14.267) providing permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, and supportive services to homeless populations in the Bloomington area; recent CoC awards include grants ranging from $118,529 to $745,247 across multiple fiscal years. The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded Chestnut a $1.065 million Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) Program grant (CFDA 64.033) effective September 30, 2025 through September 30, 2026, covering outreach, case management, and housing-related financial assistance for very low-income veteran families.

Chestnut's research and implementation science footprint centers on substance use disorder treatment, opioid use disorder prevention, and criminal justice system interventions. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded Chestnut multiple grants including a $1.33 million Project Grant and $2.39 million Cooperative Agreement for a hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial evaluating Recovery Management Checkups (RMC) scalability and sustainability for criminal justice-involved populations in Chicago (CFDA 93.279, awarded September 15, 2025, completing May 31, 2030); a $2.52 million Project Grant testing the Just Care for Families (JCFF) multicomponent intervention for parents in child welfare systems affected by opioid and methamphetamine use across nine rural Oregon counties (awarded September 15, 2025, completing May 31, 2030); an $4.029 million Cooperative Agreement to establish and operate a Community-Engaged Research Resource Center (CERRC) supporting the Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network (JCOIN) (awarded September 1, 2025, completing May 31, 2030); and a $796,786 Project Grant for BUILD IT, a digital implementation tool for opioid use disorder prevention program adoption (CFDA 93.279, awarded August 1, 2025, completing July 31, 2027). The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) funds Chestnut's behavioral health service expansion at Chestnut Family Health Center in Illinois and adolescent substance use interventions in Jefferson County, Missouri. Chestnut also received a $1.065 million VA Supportive Services for Veteran Families grant (awarded August 21, 2023).

Customer concentration is split across federal grant-making agencies. By award count, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development leads with 119 awards, followed by SAMHSA with 84 and 46 awards across different offices, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse with 58 awards. By potential value, SAMHSA programs command $30.3 million across 37 awards, and the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs' Central Office anchors $13.9 million across 11 awards (primarily the PWRRI IDIQ and its task orders). The top five customer agencies by volume or value together account for 72% of awards. The recompete cliff shows 17 awards reaching completion inside the next twenty-four months.

Chestnut operates as a sub-recipient on federal research grants, particularly under NIDA, SAMHSA, and other NIH institutes, collaborating as a subawardee with research universities and state agencies including the Illinois Department of Human Services (Block Grants for Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse, CFDA 93.959, and Block Grants for Community Mental Health Services, CFDA 93.958), the Oregon Social Learning Center, Stanford University, the University of Connecticut Health Center, the Ohio State University, and others. Named role-specific sub-awards show Chestnut personnel serving as co-investigators, methodologists, data managers, and implementation science experts on grants focused on substance use disorder treatment evaluation, workforce development for peer recovery support, and implementation strategy testing across child welfare and criminal justice systems. The Illinois Department of Human Service appears as the primary grantor on sub-awards focused on state-level substance abuse and mental health service block grant programs.

SCI-reported invoicing of $1.3 million in prime contracts across FY2022–FY2024 (FY2022: $435 thousand; FY2024: $897 thousand) reflects a subset of federal service-contract activity above the $150,000 reporting threshold. The SCI dataset shows roughly 2.2 FTEs in FY2022, a gap in FY2023, and 8.4 FTEs in FY2024 on reportable prime contracts. On federal services contracts captured in SCI, median government-paid rates ran around $85.73/hr, with rates spanning from $78.02/hr (10th percentile) to $93.45/hr (90th percentile). Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, average sub-hours share was 0%, indicating Chestnut builds its own delivery teams rather than subcontracting out labor on these service contracts.

Activity has accelerated markedly, with 18 awards in 2022 growing to 120 in 2024 and 54 in 2025; 13 awards appear in the first two weeks of 2026. Combined potential value across all 478 awards stands at $45.2 million, though combined dollars obligated have reached $376.2 million, reflecting the grant funding structure where federal grants report both obligated and potential remaining value across multi-year periods. The vendor operates a subsidiary, Chestnut Resolutions Inc. (NFP), carrying capacity signals not specified in the award summaries.