CLEVELAND — The Hitchcock Center for Women is located in Cleveland’s Hough-Glenville neighborhood. It’s a woman-based recovery and addiction provider that also has residential treatment.
President and CEO Jason Joyce says housing is key.
“We don’t believe that people can achieve sobriety without safe and stable housing.”
Since the center has been in its current building for more than three decades, it’s time for a new facility.
“It's going to expand our services, so we're going to go from averaging around 300 people a year to close to 600,” Joyce says.
What’s unique about Hitchcock is a woman’s ability to be with her children while in recovery.
“We allow it up until the age of 12, which almost no providers allow children at all,” Joyce says. “But what's nice about the new building is we're not only going to have residential treatment, all of our addiction services, but we're also going to be bringing forth a new initiative of 53 section eight housing.”
Which will provide safe and affordable housing for this underserved area of Cleveland. But this new facility would not be possible without a generous gift from the Cleveland Clinic.
"They did not come looking for us to ask if we would support this,” says Vickie Johnson, Cleveland Clinic Chief Community Officer. “Because we are entranced in this neighborhood and we're a part of the community, we heard about the initiative and asked how can we help? So when I went to leadership at the Clinic and I said, ‘This is something we should do,’ they said, ‘OK. Make it happen.’ And that's what we did. So $2.5 million later, we're here a part of this.”
Both Johnson and Joyce say the building will be symbolic of the power of collaboration.
"We're able to link them up to the Cleveland Clinic so they can get their specialty care appointments so they can get their primary care if they're pregnant, they can get all the testing services that they need there,” Joyce says.
Michelle Woods is a member of the center’s alumni board, but more than 20 years ago she was in treatment for alcoholism.
"I wasn't likable at the time,” Woods says. “I was mean and nasty. I didn't want to be here.”
But after 90 days at Hitchcock, she noticed a change in herself.
"I come to realize that I am an alcoholic woman,” she says.
As for the woman she is now?
"I'm not perfect,” Woods says. “I have a lot to work on one day at a time, but I'm not the person I used to be.”
When asked about the groundbreaking for the new building, Woods says it means a lot for her to see Hitchcock move on to “something better, something greater, more appropriate for the area where we can help more women.”
“Come to Hitchcock. This is where the healing begins,” she says.