Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) - November 22, 2001

SHELTER FOR HOMELESS MEN OPENS

A sobering light-filled facility has replaced a dark intoxicating dance club near Shelby Drive and Millbranch. And about 50 government and community officials came out last week for a nonalcoholic celebration.

The Cocaine and Alcohol Awareness Program Inc., a nonprofit behavioral health agency, had a ribbon-cutting program at its new transitional supportive housing facility for homeless men, at 1725 Pinebrook.  The agency's executive director, Albert Richardson, said the facility can house up to 40 clients, whom it will begin accepting this week.

It will offer alcohol and drug dependency rehabilitation, relapse prevention, parenting, domestic violence counseling, job readiness counseling and anger management to non-veteran males.

Clients can live there for up to a year and participate in a two-year aftercare plan. Yvonne Leander, area coordinator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the facility fills a need in homeless housing.

"Many men that are homeless today have special needs or face extreme personal circumstances that propel them in and out of homelessness. Others have lost their support network of family and friends or lack basic job skills.

"But what they have in common is when there's no room in the homeless shelter, or when the temporary housing runs out, many have no place to go."

Richardson said the federal department awarded the project about $500,000. The city's division of Housing and Community Development awarded the project about $135,000.

The agency spent about $500,000 to buy and fix up the 10,125-square-foot building, which it began renovating in March 2000.

It was vacant for almost two years after it housed nightclubs Sherrod's and Prentiss on the Hill, the site of a few shootings.

"You remember when fellows was shooting . . . and drinking," state Sen. Roscoe Dixon (D-Memphis) said. "With all the problems this place used to have, I don't see why we can't see it as a blessing. There will be no alcohol here."

Among its five sites, the agency, founded in 1989, has a residential program for homeless veterans at 3375 Winbrook.

The agency's first residential site at 1347 Ferguson is for alcohol- and drug-dependent men and women.

It also has a corrections program for nonviolent female offenders at 3835 Lamar.

The agency's original site at 1656 Lamar has outpatient chemical dependency treatment and counseling services, as well as a literacy and DUI program.