Pubdate: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 Source: Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL) Copyright: 2005 News-Journal Corporation Contact: http://www.news-journalonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/700 Author: Deborah Circelli, and Karen Duffy Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) THE BUILDING OF HOPE Serenity House Seeks Funds For Center For more than two decades, 38-year-old Kurt has considered drugs a staple in his life almost like food and water. His days began smoking marijuana and drinking on a construction site. Weekends, he was high on heroin. On Monday, he'd roll out of bed $300 poorer and his cycle began again. Numerous stints in and out of jail over the years was not a deterrent. In November, after Kurt spent two months in jail from another drug possession arrest, a local judge sent him to a Serenity House drug treatment program in DeLand. He was told he could have been sentenced to prison for two years. Serenity House is hoping to help more people like Kurt -- who did not want his last name used since he's in treatment -- with a new 125-bed treatment facility for nonviolent offenders with mental or substance abuse problems. But the agency wants the county to provide about $3 million to build the facility, which would house men and women in Volusia County who otherwise would be in jail. Serenity House officials want the county to fund the treatment facility as early as October as part of a plan for a new jail. They say the treatment facility, which could be built near an existing Serenity House site, would reduce the need for as many new jail beds. But corrections officials say while the treatment facility is needed, so are jail beds. The county corrections division is proposing adding 250 beds over the next two years and another 400 beds five years later. The County Council plans to discuss the treatment facility and new jail beds at a Feb. 1 goal-setting meeting. "Isn't it better to try to turn a life around by giving them treatment rather than warehousing them in our jail?" County Council Chairman Frank Bruno asked. Bruno said more jail beds are needed to address overcrowding, but he'd also like to see the county support the treatment facility. For Kurt, the 50-bed program in DeLand is teaching him to control his cravings. "It's been so long that my life has gone on with drugs. I wasn't sure how to live my life without them," Kurt said. "The one thing I'm sure of is that no matter how bad my life is, if I pick up drugs it's not going to solve a thing." In jail, his thinking was different. "The first thing you think about is when they release me I'm going to my dealer's house," said Kurt, who started using marijuana when he was 14 and heroin 12 years ago. Randy Croy, Serenity House executive director, said the new treatment facility would save money, reduce jail beds and "save lives." Croy points to a 2000 study on a Serenity House program showing re-arrest rates were down 64.3 percent after people went through the program, prosecution costs dropped by 74.9 percent and medical costs by 84.9 percent. "(Treatment) is just the right thing to do to break the cycle of addiction," said Joel Greenstein, chairman of the Serenity board. Circuit Judge S. James Foxman, who serves on the Act Corp. board, said the majority of felony cases he sees involve people with substance abuse or mental health issues or both. Many times he wants to send them to a program, but there's no space. Foxman said a treatment facility "would be money spent better than on a new jail. "The drug problem is as bad as it has ever been since I've been in the job," said Foxman, a judge for 25 years. "It's better to treat the underlying program if you can." Kevin Hickey, county corrections director, said that while adding treatment beds is a good idea, he wouldn't want it mixed with the jail project. "We are talking about two different things," Hickey said. "Our population projection shows we are going to need the beds." Hickey said the county has not added jail beds in 20 years. The jail has 1,558 inmates, a little over the recommended capacity. A study projects there will be 1,711 by 2008. The new proposal would add about 650 beds and cost about $23 million for both phases, he said. Serenity House has tried for three years to get funding through Congress, but money has not been available. Gail Gregory, president of the Mental Health Association of Volusia and Flagler Counties, said jails try the best they can, "but they are not equipped to deal with a person with a mental illness." Debra Darcangelo, 24, of Daytona Beach, graduated Thursday from a Serenity House program. She has a job and is working to get back her 3-year-old son, who is staying with his father and relatives. She was arrested last July after stealing checks from her landlord to buy pain pills. She said her addiction stemmed from an old car accident. At times, she'd take 40 to 50 pills a day. She stayed in jail for almost three months before a judge sent her to Serenity House, where she learned to live without drugs and started taking medicine for her bipolar disorder, which had gone untreated. "I can remain calm and I don't have a lot of anxiety," Darcangelo said. "Without Serenity House I wouldn't have known the tools I needed to live one day at a time." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin