The Hope Center as an integral and necessary member of the Marksville and Avoyelles Parish Community, the current state of its Facilities and a pressing need for Expansion

 

The Washington Street Hope Center is a non-profit substance abuse rehabilitation facility located in Marksville Louisiana that welcomes both men and women into an effective 28-day inpatient program based on the proven Recovery Dynamics Curriculum. The Hope Center has been a steady presence in Avoyelles Parish since 1990 and has treated thousands for the affliction of drug abuse and alcoholism.

 

The problem of drug and alcohol abuse is a pervasive threat to our communities and families. The Hope Center, one of the first substance abuse rehabilitation facilities in central Louisiana, is experiencing an increasing demand for its services. The Hope Center serves not only clients from Avoyelles and the surrounding parishes but those from outside the immediate area and the large population areas of the state.

 

The Hope Center provides an annual economic contribution to the city of Marksville and Avoyelles Parish. It currently employs twenty-four staff, and maintains an annual payroll of approximately $750,000, most of which goes back into the Marksville and Avoyelles Parish economy. The bulk of the annual operating expenses, however, routinely goes to maintenance and upkeep on the buildings. The Hope Center’s main operations occupy three separate buildings located in the central district of Marksville. All three of these buildings are repurposed structures and two of them are over one hundred years old. These buildings, renovated for their current purpose and continually touched up at great expense, were never built to withstand the amount of foot traffic they have undergone the past thirty-plus years. Thousands of dollars per year are spent on the constant repair and upkeep of these old buildings, however, their age and increasingly frail conditions are becoming progressively harder to overcome.

 

The Hope Center operates under the authority of the Office for Addictive Disorders, Department of Health and Hospitals, Department of Health and is CARF accredited. The task and expense of maintaining these old buildings for not only the well-being of our clients, but to meet the regulations, directives, and requirements for these buildings that these agencies set forth are becoming increasingly difficult and puts our future as an operating entity in jeopardy.

 

Request for a new facility

 

To maintain operations, the Hope Center is in desperate need of a new, centralized facility capable of serving fifty clients – thirty men and twenty women. This facility should be built in the Marksville area and will require a minimum of approximately five acres, which the Hope Center does not currently possess. More notably however, the cost of commercial construction and architectural planning renders this task completely unattainable without outside help.

 

The services provided by the Hope Center for our communities and the state of Louisiana are invaluable and need to continue. For these services to continue a new facility is imperative. To make that happen, the Hope Center respectfully asks for help from its alumni, board members, civic leaders, and representatives at both the state and federal levels to help secure necessary funds in the form of grants and donations.

 

Indications of the cost of a modest facility, built to all specifications and requirements, are in the multiple millions. Early estimates put the cost in the six-million-dollar range. As to the land needed for a new location, the average costs per acreage in the rural surrounding areas is in the ten-to-twenty thousand per acre range. Costs of the available land inside the Marksville city limits are considerably more expensive.

 

The funds for such an undertaking will need to come from federal and state-level grants and it is our hope the land can be donated. We ask for guidance and help from our alumni, board of directors, and local leaders to help us in contacting, influencing and hopefully convincing those who can facilitate what is needed.

 

The services the Hope Center provides are needed and necessary. A beacon of hope in the morass of substance abuse is vital for the people of Avoyelles and the surrounding parishes. The Hope Center saves lives and preserves families. We humbly ask for help in continuing our mission.

 

Thank you.

Jim Hamilton, Executive Director

Chasity Byrne, Assistant Director

Daniel Hamilton, Assistant Director