Meadowlark Commons to be converted into detox, drug treatment center – The Hutchinson News

Plans were announced last week to convert Meadowlark Commons, a transitional housing facility at 100 W. Second, into a new 20-bed social detoxification and drug and alcohol abuse treatment center for Hutchinson.

The move, however, is dependent on New Beginnings, the nonprofit that owns and operates the facility, coming up with some $200,000 to make necessary improvements to the aging building, including adding a fire sprinkler system.

Officials hope to have beds available by March or April.

The decision was one of two major announcements in the battle against drug and alcohol abuse in Reno County made during a meeting of the Community Drug Task Force on Tuesday.

The other is that Summit Surgical is now hosting a residential medical detoxification program within its facility on East 23rd Avenue. Itopened last week.

Conversion

While their primary focus for the past 30 years has been on housing, Shara Gonalez, executive director of New Beginnings, said shes been working with others to bring a detox center to Hutchinson since 1998.

Gonzales noted that Meadowlark Commons was repurposed in 2004 from a former hotel into transitional and emergency housing using 15-year tax credits. As those tax credits expire on Dec. 31, the agency will own the buildings free and clear, enabling it to modify its use.

It made so much sense that it becomes a detox center, Gonzales said. Its centrally located and has got a drive-through.

New Beginnings will be partnering with the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas, or SACK, to provide services. That agency has had an office at New Beginnings for 14 years and operates the 14-bed Recovery Center in Wichita.

In order to do it, there are adaptations that need to happen to the building to make it licensable for a treatment facility, Gonzales said. Thats part of why we were waiting to say anything, to get some ideas of what that would look like. At this point, its about $200,000. Thats money we have to find to be able to make this into a detox and treatment facility.

When they originally converted the building into emergency and transitional housing, it was grandfathered in so fire sprinklers didnt have to be added. With the change in use, however, now a system will be required. That will account for about half the remodeling cost, Gonzales said.

Another need will be drilling wells and installing pumps to deal with persistent under-flooding from the high water table created by last years floods.

Social detox

The priority will be establishing the social detox, said Harold Casey, president and CEO of SACK.

The highest risk person is the one coming from a hospital after being stabilized, he said. Two or three days after being back from the hospital they begin to withdraw from the depressants given at the hospital to stabilize them.

They hope to have beds available by March or April.

Initially, theyll try to open with 20 beds and over time expand it to 30 or 35.

They will put two people to a room and, in some larger rooms, up to three.

They expect to employ 17 or 18 people.

Theyll likely designate at leastfive or six beds for detox and the remainder for treatment, though some roomscould be swing beds that can be used for the greatest need.

We might have four detox beds one day and the next day need eight, Casey said.

The maximum detox, he said, would be 15, because more than that would require increasing staff.

The wait for an in-patient bed is currently as much as two months, Casey said, though a pregnant woman can usually get in within 48 hours.

If youre uninsured and not a priority, youre going to wait, he said. Thats why opening recovery services in Hutchinson is so important.

While the community will be losing those transitional housing beds, Gonzales said they'llbe able to move all those currently in that housing to Fox Run on West Second Avenue.

Thats been a concern of the organization, which was one of the reasons why we havent announced it until now, she said. We had to resolve that. But we havent been full since the roof was taken off in a storm a year and a half ago. The number just never came back up. So, we can accommodate everyone in our other facility.

The back half of the facility, she said, will remain affordable low-income apartments.

Length of stay

The average length of stay, Casey projected, will be three to five weeks.

For detox, the average length of stay is five days, but some of that might be determined by the state, he said. They have to go through a managed care process. There is no charge for detox for the individual. Anyone can come in. We bring them in to serve them and refer them to treatment.

After three to five days of detox will be three to five weeks of treatment. It will more often be three weeks, and then the can go into intensive out-patient at a place of their liking. If they have family in Liberal, theyll go to Liberal, or Topeka, or wherever it might be best supportive.

What were looking for is an 18-month commitment to provide services to them, Casey said. Nationally, according to SAMSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), recovery rates have less to do with residential or outpatient treatment, but more to do with the length of time theyre provided treatment. Eighteen months seems to have the greatest success.

A unique aspect of the collaboration by New Beginnings with treatment is the ability to move people out of treatment into housing, Gonzales said.

Besides its more traditional transitional and low-income housing, New Beginnings owned six of the citys 10 Oxford Houses.

People will not be left to their own devices to figure out where to go after leaving treatment, she said, and they wont have to have money saved to pay upfront to get into housing.

Operating challenges

SACK has operated the Recovery Center in Wichita for five years.

Were pretty much full every day, Casey said. We do get referrals from Hutchinson to detox in Wichita, but its iffy at times because at 10 a.m. we could be full, at 2 in the afternoon we could have three or four beds, and at 10 that night, be full again. Its a transient population.

Some 70% of their admissions are for methamphetamine addictions, Casey said.

"Generally, we do 550 assessments a month at SACK, Casey said. Fifty of them have a medical card, the other 500 have nothing. Theyre uninsured. One-third of them are homeless.

The Recovery Center receives about $550,000 a year in outside funding, Casey said, including $100,000 from Sedgwick County. And it operates at a loss every year. That loss has declined from $100,000 the first year, to $30,000 to $40,000 this year.

Our fiscal year ends in June, he explained. We hope next year to break even.

The danger, Casey said, is getting too many patients covered by federal block grants, because it doesnt cover costs.

Because they are a nonprofit, they continue to take clients even when theyve reached their cap of beds funded by federal block grants, he said, though most other facilities in Kansas do not.

Medicaid doesnt pay for social detox, he said, and most clients dont have money.

What were hoping is to get a combination of clients covered by Senate Bill 123, Medicaid and self-pay, and then indigent or federal block grants, he said. Well work with as many as we can afford, based on the revenue streams we have. We know there is a waiting list for SB 123. We hope to be supported by referrals.

Our goal is to serve as many as we can and break even while paying staff a fair wage, Casey said.

Donations needed

This is what weve been after for a long time, Gonzales said. This is a major announcement. But it cant happen if we dont get started covering our costs. Its not an annual cost. This one time. But it will ensure were able to move forward on opening this facility. Weve been talking for a year and a half and we didnt have a focus where to go. We do now.

The public, in general, has to step up, Gonzales said. The city and county need to step up. There are private donors weve talked about, but we hate to keep going back.

Having such a facility in the community, Casey emphasized, will ultimately save the community more than it costs.

A study by Wichita State University estimated the savings from operating a local drug and alcohol treatment program there are around $10 million a year.

Thats savings to local hospitals, state hospital, police departments, and incarcerations, he said. The other part of detox is, if the police pick someone up, its not a medical problem Its a community-wise and safety-wise place to take people thats more appropriate and where they can be monitored. In Wichita, if theyre at our facility, theyre not in a police car, theyre not in jail, theyre not in an emergency room, theyre not in your front yard urinating on your porch.

Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson noted that providing detox and treatment within the community is key to fighting drug abuse in the community.

We fight drugs on several fronts, he said. We fight it on the street with law enforcement, doing drug busts and working drug cases. We do it in the schools with Rise Up Reno County and educating our kids."

"One thing thats always stuck in my mind, when I was working narcotics years ago, President Bush 1 told the Mexican president you need to keep your people from bringing drugs to our country,'" Henderson said."He told our president When people quit wanting it, well quit bringing it in. Thats what our focus is now. Take that desire away.

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Meadowlark Commons to be converted into detox, drug treatment center - The Hutchinson News