Community Bulletin
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BUCKHANNON – The One Unique Recovery House attended Buckhannon City Council and Upshur County Commission meetings last week to request emergency bridge funding.
Megan Payne, director of One Unique Recovery House, attended both meetings on July 16 to request $10,000 from each entity.
“For the past six years, we have remained a self-sustaining nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting safe, structured recovery housing and comprehensive peer support services to individuals recovering from substance use disorder, and our commitment has never wavered, as we have consistently worked to ensure that financial challenges have never impacted the quality of care that our residents receive,” Payne said. “Today, however, we are facing an unprecedented emergency.”
Payne said the AmeriCorps program that funded their two recovery support specialist positions abruptly lost funding earlier in the week.
“This announcement came with virtually no notice, and in fact, we were scheduled to meet this month to renew our upcoming partnership,” Payne said. “Since learning of this unexpected change, I have immediately reached out to other AmeriCorps branches in hopes of transferring our placement site, and unfortunately, no other sites have been able to pick this up.”
West Virginia has two branches of AmeriCorps that offer Peer Recovery Support Services; one has already selected its sites and has limited funding, and the second has a significant waitlist.
“The loss of these two positions would have devastating consequences for our organization, the individuals we serve, as well as the community as a whole,” Payne said. “Our peer recovery support specialists are not just supplemental staff; they are essential members of our recovery team, and they provide daily peer support, crisis intervention, recovery planning, transportation assistance, community outreach, and ongoing encouragement that is critical to individuals in the earliest and most vulnerable stages of recovery.”
Payne said the loss of the positions would greatly diminish their ability to offer their services and could cause them to close their doors.
“Beyond the impact to our residents, the loss of these positions would also displace two dedicated professionals and remove the modest stipend income that supports their families,” Payne said. “One Unique Recovery House is currently operating at full capacity; we have every bed occupied and a growing waitlist. We are very proud to serve the individuals throughout West Virginia, but our greatest impact is here at home.”
Nearly half of their intakes for the past two years came from Upshur County.
“Every individual who successfully achieves stability in recovery represents reduced demands on emergency medical services, law enforcement, healthcare providers, and the county jail bill crisis, while increasing the opportunity for employment, family reunification, and long-term community stability,” Payne said. “Our organization plays a vital role in supporting other county-funded and community initiatives. We work closely with the Upshur County Day Report Office, Drug Treatment Court, Probation Services, and other community partners to provide certified recovery housing and peer recovery support for participants working to rebuild their lives.”
Payne said the two specialists also provide community outreach services beyond their residents.
“Our community outreach was developed last year because of the significant need in our county and all surrounding counties,” Payne said. “We host an average of 14 events a year. It’s a lot of events for our community. We’re participating in Relay for Life. We participate in so many things because people ask us to, and we want to be there to support our community.”
Payne said they have investigated grant funding options, but most of them do not provide emergency, immediate funding, and most of those entities encouraged them to reach out to their community for support.
“We’ve had no time to plan for this. We were actually told in January we were good for the next three years, but you know how that works. Funding can be pulled at any time, and it was,” Payne said. “While I completely empathize with the county’s financial situation, substance use disorder is a statewide problem, but looking at this data in our community, this is our community’s problem, and I’m asking for community support to allow us to continue to support our community.”
The One Unique Recovery House is aiming to raise $59,939.52 to maintain one year of bridge funding, and they have already secured $18,000 toward their goal through a private funder.
“I have worked with the LifeBridge Branch of AmeriCorps, and they are going to work with us to add us on as a partner site for next year, but we were notified, as you can see, just a few days after July 1st, and July 1st was when they stopped taking host site applications for this year,” Payne said. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Healing Appalachia. The executive director of Healing Appalachia, I have spoken to him several times, and he’s willing to come down and visit us and work with us to make a long-term stability plan now that this has happened to us.”
The Upshur County Commission thanked Payne and the One Unique Recovery House for the work they do, but they are limited in funds for outside entities for this fiscal year.
“Give us a couple of days to think about this and see what we can come up with,” Upshur County Commissioner Sam Nolte said. “Let us see if we can come up with any help for you.”
Mayor Robbie Skinner said they would refer their request to the City of Buckhannon Revenue and Expense Review Committee.
“I appreciate all the information. The city has created what’s called the Revenue and Expense Review Committee, and there’s a standard application, and they meet on an as-needed basis when we have a request, and then it refers it back to City Council either in the affirmative or in the negative, and the council has the final say over it,” Skinner said. “We do ask for financial information. We ask for audits that have taken place, if it’s a 501(c)(3) organization, so what I would recommend to the council tonight is that we let that process take its course, and we will work as quickly as we can to get the information back to us.”
City Council member Scott Randall said the work they are doing is important to the community.
“Thank you very much for coming. I appreciate you coming, even though we have to meet again. I look forward to doing that,” Randall said. “In my eyes, this is a very important thing to ease this epidemic. It can’t be arrested away, and folks have the ability to change with your program, and I’d like to learn more.”
