Purchase Eyed for rehab center

Marshall County among sites
considered for faith-based
rehabilitation center

By Jody Norwood
Tribune-Courier News Editor
jnorwood@tribunecourier.com

Sharpe – An empty school, a new building, a former hospital– the crafters behind a faith-based drug rehabilitation center are keeping an open mind on a possible location, as long as they can provide results. What matters, they say, is helping get addicts back into functioning roles in society.

“I’d like to see it up and running,” said Cheyenne Albro, Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force director. “I don’t care who runs it. It’s need that we have. The long-term, faith-based style treatments are showing the best results. People who are addicted, we need to fix these people.”

Albro and members of the PNTF met with a variety of faith and civic leaders last week at the Sharpe Baptist Church to gauge interest and support for opening a facility in the Purchase area. Albro said he hopes to open doors with 100 to 400 beds and to include aftercare and education as part of the program.

“I’d like to see it located in the Purchase area,” Albro said. Now in its 20th year, the PNTF is a cooperative law enforcement area covering Kentucky’s 16 western-most counties, stretching from Muhlenberg to Fulton. “I’m not dead set on it being anywhere. I would like Marshall County because of the geographic area.”

Marshall County serves as the eastern-most member of the Purchase area and is a geographic hub. Albro said one of the sites considered early on was the former Marshall County Hospital building. The 52,000 square foot building was sold at auction last year. Albro said he had contacted the owner, but didn’t think organizers would be able to afford the asking price.

Dennis Smith, whose company purchased the hospital, said a lease had been offered, but that there had been no further response.

Albro said he had also toured a building in Livingston County.

At Thursday’s meeting, PNTF chaplain Mike Chambers related how drug addiction had affected his own family and urged those present to consider the importance of establishing a center in western Kentucky. Chambers is pastor at Riverside Baptist Church in Muhlenberg County.

“There’s never been a move of God until someone somewhere said ‘enough is enough,’” Chambers said. “If they believe different than I do, that’s fine.”

PNTF members stressed how large the drug problem has gotten in the area.

“For the Purchase area, the prescriptions written in the last three months alone, you had 110,223 prescriptions written for controlled substances,” Albro said. “I think the population in the Purchase area is under 200,000.”

Albro said the facility would be funded through grants, donations, insurance payments and possibly through community work programs. One of the keys to the program is offering free help to addicts, who often cannot afford or have insurance to pay for treatment.

Early plans are to exclude anyone convicted of murder, rape or other violent offenses.

Sheriff Kevin Byars, who serves on the PNTF board of directors and was present at Thursday’s meeting, said he supported the faith-based approach.

“This, in my opinion, is the way to approach it,” Byars said. “We’ve got to get this going to get our people back, to get our communities back.”