$100,000 Debt Forces 60-Bed Detox Center to Shut Down

Saddled with a $100,000 debt, the county’s largest alcohol and drug rehabilitation program serving the community for almost a quarter of a century will shut its doors Tuesday.

Primary Purpose offered 60 beds for men and women in various stages of recovery. The nonprofit organization’s detox center alone has seen about 6,000 clients since it opened 10 years ago, Executive Director Brian Bilodeau said.

“This is a real sad time,” Bilodeau said while packing boxes at the program’s main office at 435 South D St. “It’s not only a loss to our staff and clients, it’s a loss to the whole community.”

The financial troubles began about two years ago after program officials got word the owners of the building they rented at West 5th Street had other plans for the site. The center moved into a vacant medical building, which needed to be heavily refurbished.

Renovations cost about $100,000, Bilodeau said. At the same time, officials at the center began having difficulty collecting from insurance companies. One insurer owes the center about $15,000, he said.

The monthly cost to operate the program’s four detox and recovery homes was $60,000, Bilodeau said.

Of the 60 beds, 16 were funded by the county, at $31,000 a month. The city of Oxnard contributed $2,100 each month to fund two beds and the state picked up the cost of five beds.

Officials tried to fill the rest with clients who would pay $3,000 to $5,000 each month for around-the-clock care. But few people who approached the center for help were insured.

To complicate matters, about a year ago, the center’s longtime executive director resigned in part from exhaustion, workers said. Marina Ross had kept the post from 1991 to 1997. During that time, the program experienced a high turnover in personnel.

After an interim executive director left in the fall, Bilodeau took the position.

“In one year, they had three different directors,” said Brenda Davison, executive director of Miracle House, a recovery program for women in Ventura. “But the big thing that brought them down was they had to move. That just killed them.”

Miracle House took in one of the 10 women at Primary Purpose. Most of the other women went to Rainbow Recovery Center in Oxnard, Davison said. She expressed dismay over the coming closure and worried about absorbing the extra clients.

“Our waiting list is already two months long,” Davison said. “Now with this it’s going to get longer. That’s how much of a need there is in this community.”

Steve Kaplan, director of the county Behavioral Health Department, also was disheartened over the program’s closure. He said the county has worked to keep the program open by increasing funding over the years.

But now, at least $50,000 would be needed to keep the doors open.

“At this point in time, they needed more than the county was able to assist them with,” Kaplan said. “There was no way the county could fund the necessary number of beds to give them a stable cash flow.”

Kaplan said the county helped cover the cost to place current clients in other programs.

“Our first concern was to the people in existing treatment,” he said.

As a last-ditch effort to save the program, Oxnard city officials looked into providing extra funding but failed to come up with the necessary cash.

“They did an outstanding job,” Oxnard Mayor Pro Tem Bedford Pinkard said. “I just hope there are other agencies that can pick up the slack. It would be a disgrace if some people had nowhere to go.”

Most of the 40 displaced clients have already been placed in other facilities. But because Primary Purpose was the only social model program countywide that served men going through detoxification, four men in detox remained at the center last week.

Next week, however, they are set to be moved to KheperaHouse in Ventura, which plans to expand its services to include a detox center for men.

In addition, three former Primary Purpose employees have taken over the monthly rent payments of the program’s two recovery homes. Without the help of Primary Purpose, they plan to turn them into sober-living residences. Already, 14 men are enrolled.

Jeff Simpson is one of the new sober-living home managers.

“I cried like heck when I found out we were going to be shut down,” he said. “I was especially sad for the newcomers. So . . . I thought, ‘Let’s try something.’ This way, the clients can stay in a sober atmosphere.”

Deanna Kettner, the program’s client services director, said she receives about 20 calls each day from people seeking help. She now refers them to other agencies.

“It’s amazing how many calls we get each day from people needing treatment, even after the word is out that we’re closing,” she said. “When I tell them, they can’t believe it. They’ve been devastated.”