Pubdate: Wed, 05 Mar 2003
Source: Style Weekly (VA)
Copyright: 2003 Style Weekly Inc.
Contact:  http://www.styleweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/430

ADDICTION CENTER FINDS A HOME

The long-expected drug addiction treatment center The Healing Place is 
finally getting its place.

An industrial building on South Side has been proposed as a home for the 
center, which will serve as both an overnight shelter and a place that 
provides treatment for drug addiction. Executive Director Michael Christin 
hopes to open the center by the end of the year.

Christin isn't yet revealing which building is under contract because 
introducing a new rehabilitation center to its neighbors can be a tricky 
proposition.

Christin says he wants to avoid the stereotype that the center will bring 
loitering addicts or criminals to the area. Its peer-led, live-in structure 
means the Healing Place won't draw a lot of traffic, he says. Few may 
realize it's even there.

Reggie Gordon, director of Homeward, praises the Healing Place program, 
which is similar to that of Alcoholics Anonymous. Drug addiction is the 
most pressing problem facing local homeless-services agencies, he says - 
"It's like the elephant in the living room." Yet some leaders of those 
agencies fear the addition of another nonprofit will further sap the 
limited funds available, Christin says.

Their fears aren't realistic, he says. While most agencies get money from 
funding organizations like the United Way, grants and a wide base of 
donors, the Healing Place's strategy is different.

"We're going to a handful of people and asking them for a lot of money," 
Christin says.

The Jenkins Foundation already has given the center $150,000 toward the $1 
million Christin estimates will be necessary to get started. Longtime 
supporter Jim Ukrop is trying to recruit some of the city's "heavy hitters" 
to fly to the original Healing Place in Louisville, Ky. Visits in the 1990s 
by prominent city leaders, including then-Mayor Tim Kaine and Ukrop, helped 
build support for the center in Richmond, Christin says.

Ukrop says they were impressed by the center's 65 percent recovery rate and 
low cost - about $18 per day, per person. The Louisville center also says 
it saves local government about $3 million annually in emergency room 
visits and jail costs, because it gives police another, better place to 
take addicted homeless people they find on the streets. The center has 
since been copied in five other large cities.

Christin says he also hopes to open a small detox center in conjunction 
with Medical College of Virginia Hospitals later this spring. - M.S.S.
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