Pubdate: Fri, 21 Apr 2006
Source: Indianapolis Star (IN)
Copyright: 2006 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.
Contact: http://www.indystar.com/help/contact/letters.html
Website: http://www.starnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/210
Author: Brendan O'Shaughnessy
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

RECOVERY CENTER WOULD BE LARGEST IN U.S.

Proposal Would Put 800 Ex-Con Addicts In Former Hospital Near Children's Museum

Investors are working to build support for opening the country's 
largest residential treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction 
in the former Winona Memorial Hospital building.

Based on a successful model program called The Healing Place that has 
been used nationwide, the program would provide treatment, support 
and education for its residents.

Some community representatives this week visited Louisville, Ky., to 
observe the original institution, which claims a recovery rate five 
times the national average.

The proposal would place more than 800 ex-convicts in a for-profit 
program near The Children's Museum and several schools, at the site 
of the hospital, which has been closed for 18 months.

Mayor Bart Peterson said he is aware of the proposal but would 
support it only if neighborhood interest groups do.

"These kinds of facilities are needed," Peterson said. "The question 
is where they should be located."

The program's backers stressed they are exploring the concept at this 
stage. They hope to gain the support of neighborhood groups and 
institutions and to win contracts with the Indiana Department of 
Correction and other sources of potential clients before moving into 
the final stages of planning.

The driving force behind the concept is James Gaither, an addiction 
doctor who works with several hospitals. He began working on the idea 
nearly three years ago, and he said his goal is to have the program 
running by the end of this year.

So far, neighbors remain skeptical.

The area immediately around the Winona site, at 3232 N. Meridian St., 
draws thousands of children every day. The Children's Museum property 
stretches for blocks to the south, St. Richard's School and Trinity 
Episcopal Church are across the street, and Shortridge Middle School 
and Indianapolis Public School 60 are within two blocks.

"The Children's Museum has invested significant resources toward the 
ongoing enhancement and improvement of the neighborhood in which we 
reside," Jeffrey Patchen, president and CEO of the museum, said in an 
e-mail. "We are extremely concerned about any entity which could 
jeopardize the safety of our neighbor residents and museum members 
and visitors, or potentially diminish that investment."

Steve Harrison, the headmaster of St. Richard's, a private school 
where tuition tops $11,000 a year, expressed the same concerns. He 
said school leaders would try to keep an open mind and learn more 
about the program before taking a position, but he worried that 
students' families would not view it positively.

Long Stay

The plan calls for residents to undergo a 12- to 18-month stay for 
substance abuse programs that would treat men and women separately as 
they come out of state prisons, county jails or other forms of 
incarceration. It would employ the spiritual approach of 12-step 
programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.

"There's a lot of money being wasted now by locking up people with 
untreated chemical dependency," said Gaither, who joined the field 
after his own recovery. "There's a need for this kind of proven 
program," and he figures the Winona location is ideal.

"We believe it would help the neighborhood" by placing a 
"community-sensitive" program in a building that has been empty 
nearly two years, Gaither said.

Gus Miller, a real estate broker for NAI Olympia Partners and the man 
trying to arrange the sale of the Winona site, has organized meetings 
with neighborhood groups to win their acceptance of the proposal.

The Healing Place in Louisville has been so successful that it has 
been replicated in Lexington, Ky., Raleigh, N.C., and Richmond, Va. 
Program literature says it costs less than $25 per day per person, 
compared with up to $200 per day in some treatment facilities. The 
money would come from taxpayers through public agencies that place 
people leaving the prison system.

The volunteer program would not be a lockdown facility, but Gaither 
said it would have its own security setup.

Department of Correction officials said they have made no commitment 
to the facility, and they already have a transition facility in Plainfield.

And the center could be too big for the demand, said Ronald 
Hunsicker, president of the National Association of Addiction 
Treatment Providers. The market may not support what he said would be 
the largest residential facility in the country, especially when the 
city already has a private facility, Fairbanks, on the Northeastside.

Gaither and Miller recognize the challenge of persuading neighbors. 
They hope to find more people like Rod Haywood, an Indiana University 
professor whose son attends St. Richard's.

"A place that helps people better their lives fits in with the 
mission of St. Richard's and Trinity Church, as I see it," Haywood 
said. "I would feel great about the idea."

More typical is the negative reaction of the neighborhood associations.

Stephen Towns, a board member of the Historic Meridian Park 
association, said his neighbors are unhappy. A mental health center 
and a halfway house already are nearby, and he said another facility 
would diminish property values in the resurging area.

"We think we have done our share," Towns said, "and it needs to go 
somewhere else."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman