Houston Recovery Center Celebrates Its First Decade
of Success Combating Substance Use
25 JANUARY 2024, HOUSTON, TEXAS: Houston Recovery Center (HRC), a provider of compassionate care, offering intervention and community care coordination to underserved individuals affected by substance use announces its banner impact over 10 years for program and service successes for those individuals dealing with periodic and habitual substance use challenges
The Houston Recovery Center was founded to help solve the challenges presented by the intersections of problematic substance use, law enforcement, the overburdened legal system, homelessness, and out-of-control healthcare costs impacting Houston, the surrounding communities and indeed every individual. In ten years, we have achieved what we set out to accomplish.
Reducing jail admissions for public intoxication. HRC implemented a sobering center jail diversion program for intoxicated people to receive appropriate care, shifting the approach from punishment by jailing to safely sober up with access to treatment. By decreasing admissions into jail of intoxicated people, this program successfully shifted 15,000+ intoxication arrests in 2012 to 264 admissions into jail in 2022. The estimated costs of jailing 15,000 people for public intoxication were $4-$6 million. It cost $1.6 million per year to run the sobering center.
Preserving law enforcement resources. Sobering Center admissions have reached almost 50,000 admissions with 40,000+ jail diversions having saved police officers the equivalent of almost nine years of time. This enabled them to return to the streets faster and focus on protecting the city of Houston and surrounding communities from more serious crimes.
Preserving emergency medicine resources. In the previous eight years, HRC learned through cross-sector data analysis that 11,000 clients had incurred more than 56,000 EMS transports to 65 hospitals across Greater Houston. The estimated cost was in the hundreds of millions of dollars just for EMS and 2 safety-net hospitals. Houston Recovery Center is refocusing its efforts to help its growing partnerships with the Harris Health System and Memorial Hermann to directly link frequent patients with substance use disorders to our long-term recovery program to alleviate the staggering emergency medicine costs that are overburdening these organizations.
Preventing readmissions to jail. HRC designed a long-term recovery program specifically for low income/uninsured clients to provide them access to treatment, social services and medical care. This program has enrolled 4,700 people offering support and care coordination at no cost. The Sobering Center served nearly 10,000 unique clients living on the street who were admitted 21,699 times by 57 law enforcement agencies. Houston Recovery Center became a gateway to housing since many had not been previously assessed. Staff now conducts client housing assessments and enters this information in The Homeless Management Information System.
“We close this year filled with gratitude for what we’ve been able to accomplish, said Leonard Kincaid, CEO. Now that we have a solid foundation for providing exceptional services, we are ready to scale up our service model by expanding our community partner network that serves as early points of intervention and by providing greater access to a reliable referral source. We are excited about this new year and the opportunities it brings to increase the number of individuals who, through HRC, HRCfind and sustain a path to recovery.”
Finally, the Houston Recovery Center has gained national attention recognized by the International Association of Police Chiefs and by participating in the National Sobering Collaborative’s monthly dialogues and annual summits to discuss HRC’s successes and best practices, policies, funding, drug and programmatic trends, with sobering program leaders, their staff and stakeholders.
About Houston Recovery Center
Houston Recovery Center (HRC) was launched in 2013 in Houston, Texas, to develop and operate a law enforcement diversion program. The Sobering Center delivers this program by receiving and monitoring intoxicated people as they safely sober up. The recovery process can include a series of treatment, healthcare, housing, and social services offered by independent specialty providers. Houston Recovery Center’s frequent clients, many with complex profiles, lack the resource capacity and behavioral capability to navigate and enroll in a series of independent services on their own. In response, HRC designed Partners in Recovery, a recovery care management program pairing six months of case management with 18 months of peer support. HRC’s “recovery team” creates a recovery plan based on client-defined goals. Services are linked together in a continuum using transportation and “warm handoffs” to deliver a system of care. The overarching goal is to improve successful access to appropriate care resulting in increased rates of sustained stabilization and a better quality of life.
To review our full 10-year Impact report visit: HRC Impact Report 2023 by Houston
Media Contact:
Leonard Kincaid, CEO, at Lkincaid@houstonrecoverccenter.org
713.236.7802
Marketing Contact:
Bob Lytle, at blytle@houstonrecoverycenter.org
281.467.7145