Mike Wolanin | The Republic St. Peter’s Lutheran Pastor Mark Teike poses for a photo in the sanctuary at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. Pastor Teike has announced he is retiring after serving the church for 30 years.
A planned 15-bed shared housing facility that will serve women suffering from substance use disorder has reached its capital requirements after getting $300,000 from Bartholomew County.
The Bartholomew County Council unanimously agreed to appropriate $300,000 from its Riverboat Fund to go towards Dove Recovery House for Women, a 6,400 square-foot facility that will be located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Pavilion Drive and Marr Road.
Mark Teike, chairman of the board for Bridge to Dove, said the recovery house will be a National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR) Level 4 facility, which offer the most intensive level of support for those in recovery.
It will be the first of its kind in Bartholomew County. Columbus is already home to level one, two and three facilities.
Level-four facilities provide the highest level of support to people who are going through recovery and offer, among other things, medical care and employ licensed clinical social workers.
Teike noted that women are a “grossly under-served population” when it comes to inpatient substance use disorder treatment.
The $3.5 million project received funding from a number of public and private sources, including more than $600,000 through opioid settlement dollars, $225,000 from the Custer Nugent Foundation, $100,000 from Columbus Regional Health Foundation, as well as contributions from more than 150 families, to name a few, Teike said.
United Way also secured a large grant for the facility, but Teike said he was waiting for it to be finalized to talk about details.
Construction on the facility, donated by David and Cindy Force, started in June, and once its complete, the operating budget will be paid for by Bridge to Dove.
Clients staying there will be able to do so for up to two years, rent free, but the average stay is around eight months, according to Teike.
Bridge to Dove has other facilities in Indianapolis and Jasper as well. And more than 75% of the women who go through the program are still sober, according to Teike.
“They’re (Bridge to Dove) considered the gold standard in the state of Indiana when it comes to addiction treatment,” Teike told council members.
The hope is Dove Recovery House for Women will open its doors about a year after construction got started, so it could be open by next summer, Teike said in an earlier interview.
Not only will the facility help transform the lives of those who stay there, it also has the potential to reduce the number of drug offenders and ultimately save the county money, Teike mentioned to council members, noting that it costs about $78 to house someone spending a night in jail.
“If you were to multiply $78, times 365 days. a year, and a success rate of 75%, and we have a 15-bed facility— you can do the math,” Teike said. “I think there’a great return on investment there.”
Council member Mark Gorbett, R-District 3, sketched out that the facility would save the county about $427,000 annually.
