CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Kanawha County Commission has allocated $34,000 in funds to a new drug recovery center set to open next month in Charleston.
Recovery Point will open its doors on the city’s West Side on Nov. 1. A ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 3 from 12-1 p.m.
Construction began earlier this year on the facility that will serve women battling drug addiction.
“We have the men’s facility in Huntington. We’ll have the women’s facility here. It’s the only one in the state, the first one in the state. I can not think of a better use of public funds,” said Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper.
With West Virginia’s drug epidemic, Recovery Point Program Director Rachel Thaxton said these services are needed in the Capital City. She said their program provides women with the help they need and gives judges options other than locking them up in jail.
“The problem is never really addressed. The problem is their addiction. A place like ours give (Kanawha County) Judge (Jennifer) Bailey a chance to send them somewhere so that we can work on the addiction so that they don’t have to keep returning to jail and prison,” Thaxton said.
About $24,000 of the $34,000 will be put toward two beds for women in Kanawha County. The remaining $10,000 will be used for renovations and other materials needed to support the new facility.
The new center is for recovery, not for drug treatment, Thaxton pointed out. They help women get back on their feet.
“We don’t have doctors or counselors or therapists or anything like that. We rely on peer mentoring,” she said.
“The whole point of recovery is sort of to let women evolve and transition back out into society successfully.”
Carper said he knows drug addiction is a real issue in the state and in the county, so funding the program was simply “the right thing to do.”
“How could you be against this? What family doesn’t know someone that’s got a drug addiction problem? Frankly, the feds and the state and the local governments — it’s going to take everybody, but you just can’t lecture people when they have an addiction,” he said. “You have to do something about it.”
The $34,000 came from annual funding from NGK Spark Plugs.