North Jersey Aids Alliance Inc.

North Jersey Aids Alliance Inc., operating as the North Jersey Community Research Initiative (NJCRI), is a tax-exempt nonprofit recipient of federal grants for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, substance use disorder services, and mental health support, with both prime grant awards and sub-awards split nearly evenly across its portfolio. Based in Newark, New Jersey, NJCRI serves medically underserved populations in Essex County and the greater Newark eligible metropolitan area through community-based clinical and behavioral health services delivered at 393 Central Avenue.

NJCRI's federal grant footprint centers on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), with secondary funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The organization holds active prime recipient awards across multiple SAMHSA and HRSA grant programs. A $545,000 SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment grant (CFDA 93.490) awarded September 2026 funds comprehensive treatment, early intervention, and recovery support services for transitional-aged youth ages 18 to 25 with substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders, targeting African American and Hispanic populations with particular attention to LGBTQ persons and those experiencing homelessness; the five-year program runs through September 2031 and aims to serve 125 individuals annually. A $1.092 million annual SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment grant awarded September 2024 funds a portable clinical care pilot project providing basic primary healthcare, low-barrier substance use disorder treatment, harm reduction services, and care coordination for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness across Essex, Morris, Sussex, Union, and Warren counties, with performance through September 2027. NJCRI also holds an HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau cooperative agreement (awarded April 2022, running through March 2027) to implement high-impact HIV prevention for young transgender and gender-nonconforming persons of color ages 14 to 34 in the Newark eligible metropolitan area. Additional prime awards include a February 2024 SAMHSA grant for LGBTQI+ family support services and a September 2023 SAMHSA grant for healthy transitions programs targeting transition-aged youth with serious mental illness in Essex County.

Fifty-two percent of NJCRI's awards are prime grants; forty-eight percent are sub-awards, primarily under New Jersey Department of Health and New Jersey Department of Human Services pass-through agreements. Recent sub-award work includes HIV testing, PrEP navigation, and linkage to care services; medical monitoring for persons living with HIV; substance abuse prevention and treatment; and opioid use disorder medication access in homeless shelters. NJCRI also serves as a research site sub-recipient on NIH-funded studies through Rutgers University and the University of Illinois, including work on social networks and cognitive health among Black and Latino sexual minority men and optimization studies for COVID-19 testing interventions.

Over the past five years, NJCRI has received thirteen awards in 2025 and ten in 2023, with seven awards completing in the next twenty-four months. The organization has secured $68 million in combined obligated funding across sixty-seven awards tracked in the source data, with awards dating to 1991. SAMHSA (both the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Center for Mental Health Services) and CDC represent the largest funding concentration across NJCRI's recent portfolio, accounting for roughly 70% of awards by count. The organization competes in unrestricted, full-and-open grant competitions; no federal contract vehicles or set-aside designations appear in the source data.