MT. WASHINGTON, Ky (WDRB) -- A new business is coming to Mt. Washington, one its director said is desperately needed.
Seven acres along Bardstown Road near Hope Street will soon be home to a 25,000-square-foot drug treatment facility will be built. The Robert Alexander Center for Recovery will have 50 bed, five of which will be community beds for those who can’t afford treatment.
“You don’t have to lose your job. You don’t have to lose your family and bottom out like I did,” said James Sweasy, outreach coordinator for Chapel Hill. “Once I decided I was done and went to the recovery program in downtown Louisville, all of the chaos stopped.”
Sweasy hosts a popular podcast and has nearly 150,000 social media followers. He’s now approaching his seventh year of sobriety and continues to help others with their journeys.
“It’s been very rewarding," he said. "When you remove drugs and alcohol, you can focus on your family, your life, your career [and] building things where as before, drug and alcohol addiction took precedent of that."
Many in the area acknowledge a drug treatment facility is needed.
“I believe we need it," said Joe Martin, who lives in Mt. Washington. "There’s people in this county that have to go downtown. For some of them, it is not feasible for them."
However, others say it would be more effective for people somewhere else.
“To put it in the middle of town and have kids that have never seen such a thing is not the way to go,” said Josh Turner, who works near the new site.
Patient insurance will be billed, but the center will not accept Medicaid. It has teamed up with other Kentuckiana treatment centers that do, however.
“We’re trying to get out in front of it and catch people before it’s homeless shelter time, Sweasy said.
Construction will begin this fall with an opening in September 2020.
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