Developers and treatment providers on Tuesday celebrated the start of restoring a new group home for pregnant women and new mothers who are addicted to drugs.
Restoration Housing said rehabilitation will take about six months on an old mansion at 1729 Patterson Avenue that Anderson Treatment left in 2022 for a new drug recovery home on Elm Avenue.
By early next year, The Twelve Foundation plans to provide services similar to those offered at Bethany Hall, a center for pregnant and parenting women that shuttered two years ago.
Restoration Housing bought the ca. 1920 home in January thanks to a $400,000 grant from Aetna Better Health of Virginia.
The home, which will be called the Grove on Patterson, will house about 16 women and 16 infants, who stay an average of six months, typically spanning times of pregnancy and up to three months postpartum.
“It’s really symbolic of the women that will be in this building, and how we hope and intend for them to feel supported and supportive of each other and to have it feel like a community,” Isabel Thornton, executive director of Restoration Housing, said of the facility’s name during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We wanted to bring these services here because there’s such a stigma to substance use disorder, and a byproduct of that is shame, and a byproduct of that shame is that women don’t seek help.”
Anderson Treatment and Carilion Clinic will also provide care at the group home.
Kimberly P. Simcox, a doctor with Carilion, said in a press release that research shows such facilities “play a vital role in breaking the intergenerational cycle of addiction, as children raised in a healthy and supportive environment are less likely to develop substance use issues themselves.”
Published August 13, 2024 in The Roanoke Rambler by Henri Gendreau.
