Recovery In Community

After a thoughtful collaborative design process including community input, the Abell Foundation awarded a grant of $2 million in 1997 for two years to implement Recovery in Community in three Southwest Baltimore neighborhoods. The three Southwest Baltimore communities targeted by RIC (Franklin Square, Boyd Booth and Fayette Street) are among the oldest African-American communities in Baltimore. The total population of the Southwest Cluster is approximately 7,200 with approximately 1,600 households. The vast majority of Southwest residents are African-American. Over 50% of adults living in the neighborhoods have less than a 12th grade education. Many families have multiple generations of relatives residing in the area. Economic decline, beginning in the 1970’s, however, drastically affected the area as home ownership decreased and businesses moved out of the community. Together with economic decline, the level of substance abuse and associated crime in the neighborhoods grew.

After locating its permanent site, mobilizing the community, and training the staff, RIC started full operation in June l999. In 2001, RIC was certified by the state as an outpatient drug-free program and was subsequently awarded full state operating funds. RIC differs significantly from the majority of existing drug treatment outpatient programs in that it provides a street outreach component, comprehensive on-site case management, stipends for transitional housing, on-site auricular acupuncture and follow-up services designed to rehabilitate, find employment and bring stability to RIC participants’ lives.

Although RIC is State-certified as a standard outpatient program, it actually provides an array of services that are analogous to the State category of an intensive outpatient program. It is also unique in that other outpatient programs focus on participants remaining in the program from three to six months and consider this as indicating successful completion of treatment, whereas RIC participants only graduate once they have achieved nine consecutive drug-free months in the program. Since its inception in 1999, data has consistently shown that RIC’s emphasis on long-term participation is proving very effective. According to FY 2005 data provided by the Maryland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration, 50 percent of RIC clients were retained in treatment for 90 days or more with an average length of stay of 147 days. National research has established that the length of time an addict participates in a treatment program is a critical aspect to an individual’s successful recovery. The fact that RIC clients are averaging approximately five months in the program is very positive. Both the street outreach component and supportive housing contribute significantly to the retention rates of RIC. A 91.3 percent decrease in arrest rates was also reported for RIC participants during this same time frame (self report).

In August 2006, RIC will graduate twenty three individuals who have been drug free for nine months to a year, joining the total number of two hundred forty three participants who have successfully graduated after a drug-free year since RIC’s inception in the summer of 1999. As a result of RIC’s successful track record and innovative approach, it was recently selected to participate in a major Robert Wood Johnson-sponsored initiative, the Threshold to Recovery Initiative. Under this initiative, three non-traditional substance-abuse treatment programs such as RIC are collaborating with a community health center to serve 4,500 people per year. The goal of Threshold to Recovery is to demonstrate that non-traditional treatment centers offering alternative therapies, peer support, and expanded hours can be a low-cost, high volume, and effective means of increasing access to treatment, retaining people in treatment, and sustaining recovery for those already treated.

To some extent, RIC is a victim of its own success. Because of the increasing number of clients seeking service, some now have to be referred to other programs in the City because RIC does not have the space to serve them. Looking back over RIC graduates’ progress and reviewing their multiple needs, it became increasingly apparent to RIC’s staff that the addition of available transitional housing for RIC clients provides a critically important stabilizing component. For example, of the 66 graduates in 2002, 52 were in transitional housing from between three to nine months; of the 37 graduates in 2003, there were 29 in transitional housing from three months to one year. In order to partially address this need, RIC received funding from The Abell Foundation to provide transitional housing stipends to clients in need of a stable and supportive living situation.

Highly structured and well-run transitional housing is very difficult to locate in RIC’s neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore and so RIC staff has resorted to seek out high quality transitional housing for RIC participants scattered throughout a number of neighborhoods around the City. This often results in RIC clients having to take two to three buses in order to participate in the program during the day. In light of this logistical challenge, RIC with support from the Abell Foundation acquired a vacant row house and a small adjoining Laundromat directly across from RIC’s center, to house RIC participants. The eight-bedroom house will serve as transitional housing for RIC participants, with the Laundromat operating as much-needed service program space.