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On January 28, 2003, President Bush proposed a new $600 million program to help 300,000 Americans receive treatment for drug and alcohol addictions through a new program called Access to Recovery (ATR). The original philosophy of the ATR program was to provide people seeking drug and alcohol treatment with vouchers to access a range of appropriate community-based services. By providing treatment vouchers, the new program sought to:

• Promote client choice
  
• Expand access to a broad array of clinical treatment and recovery support services
  
• Include services provided by faith-based and community-based programs
  
• Increase substance abuse treatment capacity

On March 4, 2004, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) released the initial announcement requesting grant applications for the ATR program. In the announcement, SAMHSA invited states, tribes, and territories to apply for funding to design and implement programs within their own respective communities.

The California Rural Indian Health Board (CRIHB) was among the 44 states and 22 tribes and territories to apply for an ATR grant. In its application, CRIHB showed that there were approximately 627,000 AI/AN in California, and of those individuals, 88,024 needed substance abuse treatment and recovery support services in 2003. However, only 18,051 clients actually received services, resulting in a treatment gap of 69,973 individuals. CRIHB proposed to narrow the treatment gap by supplementing the services currently available with a new statewide system to increase access to recovery.

On August 3, 2004, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded $100 million in ATR grants to 14 states and CRIHB (the only tribal organization to receive funding). Of the 66 applications received by the agency, the application prepared by J. L. Ward Associates and submitted by CRIHB received the third highest score, and resulted in a grant award of $17.1 million. A number of other subcontractors also contributed to the preparation of the grant application, including American Indian Training Institute (AITI), Evaluation Management Team (EMT), James Marquez Graphic Design, MAXIMUS, and The Turtle Plan.

Over the next ten months, the CRIHB staff, along with its board of directors and numerous project partners, worked to design and implement the California American Indian Recovery (AAIR) program in accordance with its Our Mission, and on May 24, 2005, the AAIR program was launched. Since then, the program has continued to empower AI/AN people in California to access a wide variety of treatment opportunities that will foster recovery. During the first three years of the project, AAIR projects it will have provided substance abuse treatment and recovery support services to nearly 7,000 individuals.