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To save the urban farm next door, Covington architect helped create plan Julia Fair Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
Bethany Ball, associate director of Addiction Services at the Kenton County Detention Center, talks with inmates with addiction during a group therapy session March 25. The inmates volunteered for an evidence-based treatment and aftercare program. PHOTOS BY LIIZ DUFOUR/THE ENQUIRER
One jail treats addicted inmates, forges path of aftercare Terry DeMio Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
It’s jail, yes, but a diff erent kind of jail for inmates with addiction "Stranger Things" plays on the dorm TV on Friday afternoons, and they are fi xated. The men indulge in pizza and pop occasionally. They love that. And sometimes, one of the guys (an expert with clippers) cuts another’s hair, no charge. Welcome to jail. The Kenton County Detention Center in Independence wasn't always like this. It has embraced science-based research for inmates with addiction who want it since 2015. The plan was a response to the fi rst major infl ux of fentanyl in Northern Kentucky, when overdose deaths skyrocketed and people with opioid use disorder fi lled the jail. Don't misunderstand. It's still jail. But it is rare for jails and prisons in the United States to off er a full continuum of treatment for inmates with addiction, and especially, to include medication – even though it is the standard of care. Here, in 2015, offi cials tried something new: They hired Jason Merrick, a certifi ed drug and alcohol addiction counselor with degrees in social work and in recovery himself, to a newly created role: Addiction Services director. Merrick pieced together a jail stay for those with substance use disorder that was framed around what addiction specialists saw as best practices. It was a solid start. Its evolution never stopped. In 2018, the eff ort expanded: The jail partnered with Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, a nationally known treatment provider, in a program called Strong Start Comprehensive Opioid Response with 12 Steps and Reentry. It’s three months of treatment, off ering a range of opioid-use disorder medications, followed by three months of aftercare. It appears to be working. Only 24% of those who completed both the jail and aftercare program have been rearrested and jailed after three years, said John Clancy, director of strategic partnerships at the Life Learning Center, a focal point of the aftercare program. That compares to 68% recidivism after three years nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
On the inside We repeat: The Kenton County jail is still a jail.
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Melissa Baird moved to Covington’s Westside neighborhood in October 2020 just steps away from Orchard Park, a community garden. The half-acre space, bursting with chickens, tomatoes and bees, drew Baird and her husband, Austin Zanella, to the neighborhood. It was even featured on their home’s Zillow webpage. Five months later, the city of Covington announced plans to seek developers to transform part of the space into single-family homes. The gardeners weren’t happy. Seven years ago, they transformed the city-owned lot into the garden. They didn’t want to lose their space to newly constructed homes and condos. Baird, a Covington-based architect with WorK Architecture + Design, had an idea. For a month and a half, she worked on a plan with a group of seven Northern Kentucky companies to save the garden and add homes to the block. The group got an endorsement from the gardeners and submitted its plan to the city on May 4.
Creating the proposal
When an inmate graduates and is released from the Strong Start Comprehensive Opioid Response with 12 Steps and Reentry from the Kenton County Detention Center, their fi rst stop is the Life Learning Center in Covington. There, they get clothing, help fi nding a job, a backpack full of essentials and the start of services that will help them get back on track and start a drug-free life.
The program participants are still inmates, though Merrick tends to call them “patients” in conversation. There are jail standards in place for every inmate in the recovery dorms: When to get up, eat, sleep, shower and what to wear (jail uniforms) are among them. But this is not standard incarceration. Even its staff is atypical. Take David Wray. On one Monday in March, the 6-foot-4, uniformed Wray walks to the front of the men’s dorm (housing 67 inmates that day, he notes) and climbs onto the raised, circular deputy’s station, giving him a clear vantage point to all corners of the room. Wray, a fully trained deputy, takes this role twice a week. And as a deputy he has a multitude of duties: ensuring safety for visitors and the men, preparing inmates for court, searching them as they See JAIL, Page 11A
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When Baird read about the city’s request for development proposals at her block’s beloved garden, she reached out to her friend, Joe Stevie, a Northern Kentucky developer with the Covington-based company Sparen Realty. “I'm a neighbor so I want to see development in the neighborhood instead of vacant dilapidated buildings,” Baird said. Stevie had been reading about the opportunity himself when Baird’s email pinged into his inbox. Stevie and the companies created a plan to save the garden and add seven single-family homes — including a Habitat for Humanity home — and a nine-unit condominium to the block, according to the development application shared with The Enquirer. They estimate the condos will be no more than $350,000 and the homes will be between $350,000 and $475,000. “We want them to be aff ordable, and we want to get a wide variety of people living there,” Stevie said. See FARM, Page 6A
Susan Utell works on her plot of garden space at Orchard Park. For seven years residents have turned the land into a community garden. ALBERT CESARE / THE ENQUIRER
Vol. 4 No. 19 © 2021 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED $1.00
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