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The Hope House is a transitional housing facility that is an extension of Carol Jones Recovery Center. Women live at the house for six months at a time while they are recovering from substance abuse. KSMU's Emily Nash talked with several women who live at the Hope House.
The women who live at Hope House have taken initiatives to maintain a healthy and safe lifestyle.
Each came to Hope House for a different reason, but have something in common.
They are all recovering from substance abuse.
Leslie has been a resident of Hope House for about five months and says it has been a safe place for her to learn about herself while she recovers.
"I'm an alcoholic, and I ended up in Springfield and I relapsed and therefore went out and found Carol Jones and found out they had transitional housing. Transitional housing is extremely important for recovery. It's not like you can just take a person and put them in a treatment for 30 days and send them right back out where they came from because that's just going to be relapse heaven. So you really need a secure safe environment where you can take your time and learn yourself and learn how to survive in this world today it's not easy out there."
She says, women tend to wait too long to get treatment for their addictions and transitional housing is one way to help encourage women to get help.
"Women tend to get in trouble before they got into treatment. There were several years back when I thought I knew, I thought to myself if I could go into treatment I would, but what am I going to do with the kids, who is going to take care of the kids, how am I going to do this how am I going to do this without alerting social services and then they come and take the kids from me. I mean there is all sorts of things that go through your mind. And so women tend to wait until they are in trouble. It's really really important There are a lot of male facilities but not women's."
Leslie had trouble finding transitional housing when she was looking for treatment in Kansas.
"When I was in Laramie WY I was looking for a place I could go to in Kansas. And I couldn't find anything within a 100 mile range within where my daughter was living. That's one of the reasons I landed in Springfield. So they are very far in few between. And we need to have more. There is no doubt about it."
While Leslie has lived in the house the longest, Amy has only been living there for a few weeks..
A court order sent Amy to the house and to receive treatment at Carol Jones Recovery Center.
Amy says, it was hard living at the house at first, but says she would have relapsed after the first 30 days of her treatment if she wasn't living there.
"Everybody has their own opinion of what is going to help them, but once you get out there are see what it is really like, after just being in treatment for 30 days, You know relapse is going to be inevitable for anybody who is fresh out of treatment and going back out of the street. I mean, you only know that one way of life. But, coming here you get to learn something different."
Amy has been through several rehab facilities, and says Hope House is successful because of support from the women in the house.
"I mean, you've got people there you can talk to if you feel like you are about to relapse, you got people around you to talk to about it, I mean you've got meetings you can go to, you've got people here you can help you. Where you have people on the outside who are there who are going to use with you or enable you to use. Here you don't have that."
After the six month stay at Hope House, many women who completed the program come back and try to help the newer women living there.
Julie is a past resident of Hope House and visits the current ladies often.
She says, when she came to the house after completing her30 day treatment, she decided to never return to her previous lifestyle.
"By the time I came to the Hope House I knew I was through, you know I was done with my past life and I needed some help to learn how to live in a different way. I think the opportunity that it would be a place to call mine. I just thought it would be a wonderful experience."
Julie has stayed clean for the past year and says thanks to Hope House she knows she can live a healthy life.
"I think the hardest thing is just learning to life on life's terms but no, I don't experience cravings I don't have a desire to go back to the way I used to live. I know today that I don't have to go back to that. I don't know if I would be exactly where I am today if it weren't for the Hope House and for the counselors at Carol Jones and just the other girls there to give me experience strength and hope"
In the future, Carol Jones Recovery Center wants to fill Hope House and open another transitional housing facility for women with children.
