JAMESTOWN – A local health organization that provides a drug rehab program for area addicts is asking city leaders to offer their support.
During Monday night’s Jamestown City Council Work Session, Rick Huber of the Mental Health Association of Chautauqua County spent more than half an hour talking with city officials, providing information on his program and explaining why it’s needed in the ongoing fight in the local war on drugs.
Huber said drug addiction – especially for heroin – is a growing and continuous problem throughout Chautauqua County. He said he’s currently working with the county in trying to reduce the number of addicts who are arrested and put in jail.
“The first part of the program that we recommended that they do is a jail diversion program for people with mental health issues and addictions,” Huber said. “Not your deals. The chief and I have talked about that. They are where they belong and need to stay there. But the addicts are who we need to get.”
Currently, the Mental Health Association is working on developing a self-sustaining jail diversion program where addicts will have an alternatives to being sent to jail.
They would come into a program where they would spend six days a week, eight hours a day in classes and groups,” Huber said. “They would be going to their therapists, they would see their medical doctors and they would receive programming to reduce the addiction that they have.”
He added that currently, the jail diversion program has a success rate of more than 70 percent, although it is only working on a limited basis.
The initial cost of expanding the jail diversion program so that it can fully address the current needs in the community would be $250,000 to $300,000. But Huber emphasized that once it’s up and running the program would be self-sustaining. He also said that his program is not seeking funding from the city, but instead is just looking for support. He’s hoping that local and regional foundations along with funding from Albany will provide financial support to help seed the project.
Huber said the Mental Health Association is also looking into opening up a long-term rehab facility for Chautauqua County. It would be a self-funded, long-term detox facility for recovering addicts who live in the community. The initial cost would be $1.5 million to primarily help pay for a work component, which would provide jobs for those enrolled in the program as well as a stream of revenue to help pay for the cost of running it.
City officials said they would like to offer support. Council president Greg Rabb instructed Huber to seek an endorsement for his proposed projects from the Strategic Planning Commission’s Health Task Force and to also provide city officials with an outline containing more details of each program so they can return with any questions they may have.
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