Butler Receives Housing Grant

Article by Jeff Jones | KPC News | February 21, 2022

BUTLER — Plans for three new recovery houses in Butler received a huge boost last week.

Friday, the Office of Community and Rural Affairs announced the City of Butler has been awarded $600,000 in the form of a Recovery Housing Program grant on behalf of Inspiration Ministries Inc.

“We were incredibly excited to get the phone call from Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch,” said Inspiration Ministries president and CEO Andy Foster.

“As an organization, we know how important this initiative will be to impact the community, so I think it validated a lot of the hard work that not only Inspiration Ministries has done, but also the commitment that the City of Butler has to improvements in their city and also DeKalb County.”

The funds will be used to construct three, one-story, 1,450-square-foot, modular National Alliance for Recovery Residences homes in the 400 block of Depot Street.

Last fall, the city agreed to apply for the grant on behalf of Inspiration Ministries.

The total cost of the project is $700,292. Inspiration Ministries is providing a local match in the amount of $95,292 from its cash and cash equivalent fund. In addition, a $5,000 in-kind donation for environmental review labor has been provided by the Northeast Indiana Regional Coordinating Council.

The transitional homes will be owned and operated by Inspiration Ministries to provide a total of 15 NARR-certified beds for alumni residents who have successfully completed their “Plus One” recovery program.

Inspiration Ministries has one year to complete the project. Each house will have beds for five people, Foster said.

“They are recovery-oriented, supportive housing, so the men and women that will be living in these houses will be graduates from recovery programs in our community,” Foster explained. “These people will be fully employed. They’ll be working on getting their children back.

“This won’t have as much turnover,” he continued. “At a high level, they would have the opportunity to live there for a year. We foresee serving 15-25 people with this housing initiative.”

While this is the first time Inspiration Ministries has received state funding, it isn’t the group’s first foray into recovery housing.

“We have been doing this recovery-oriented, supportive housing model for two years,” Foster said. “That was part of the reason why we got the grant.

“We’ve been able to show, over the last 24 months when we instituted the first bed, our recidivism rate is zero,” he said. “That means residents that have finished recovery programs and moved into alumni housing, for the last 24 months, 0% of those people have re-engaged with the criminal justice system.

“We feel like this form of supportive housing is a game changer,” Foster said. Other programs have criminal justice re-engagement rates as high as 65%, he noted.

Inspiration Ministries’ existing housing model served approximately 30 people in a 24-month period.

Its program has had communication with not only the lieutenant governor, but also the governor’s drug task force office and U.S. Congressman Jim Banks’ office.

“We recognize that there’s something special going on,” Foster said. “DeKalb County is uniquely suited because of the collaboration between organizations, including Inspiration Ministries, but not only Inspiration Ministries.

“We feel we have an opportunity to develop recovery-oriented and mental health services and housing to make an incredible impact over the next few years.”

The news release said, “Currently, there is a significant shortage of affordable housing for recovery graduates. This project will provide much-needed housing for persons recovering from addiction disorders and provide the stability and quality of care needed for sustainable, long-term recovery to fully assimilate back into the community.”

“People are finding recovery. They’re growing, they’re staying connected in their community and they’re great employees,” Foster said. “They’re people who are now driving initiatives in the community and they’re becoming volunteers and giving back.

“I can’t say enough about the City of Butler and Mayor Mike Hartman. He has had a drive to see that community change. … He’s really done great, and I am so thankful for that.

“We feel like Butler really has an opportunity to be a flagship in DeKalb County and really in the State of Indiana.”

Foster said Inspiration Ministries believes in the ability to change.

“We work really hard as an organization. We just believe it’s achievable. We believe people can change,” he said. “We believe this community can change, and we invest a lot of our time, talent and treasure into developing systems that are going to improve people’s lives.”

Article source: https://www.kpcnews.com/butlerbulletin/article_6ebcdb5b-6bae-51cc-81b2-a58b70a2b91f.html