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.