First, Changes [Treatment and Recovery, Inc.] would like to thank the Sullivan West Central School Board for all of their hard work and time spent. It was no easy task, knowing how people felt, to make this decision. Secondly, we would like to clear up some of the confusion and misconception that we have been reading about:

Yes, we are a for-profit facility and will be paying taxes. We will be providing employment for professionals, para-professionals and staff at wages reflective of their education, training and skills in the long run and for construction and related building trades in the short run. Our facility is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so please do not compare us to the Kelly’s home. Our facility is much different than the Kelly’s home facility and their clients who suffer from mental illness and who are wards of the state, quite possibly because their drug or alcohol addictions were never treated. We take recovery very seriously and are committed to helping those that want to recover and lead a productive and sober life.

We read a comment, “no rehab in my backyard.” So if we all do nothing about it, we won’t have a rehab in our backyards, we will have addicts. Our facility is built around clients who need help and voluntarily enter our facility in search of the ability to free themselves from the clutches of addiction….

At Changes, we pride ourselves in promising that any client who enters our treatment program with insurance and has been accepted for a 30-day period, will not be dropped or sent home should their insurance fail to pay or be discontinued while in treatment. We firmly believe that clients benefit from a smooth transition from one level of care to the next as they gain the necessary skills for a successful recovery…. Research has long shown that the longer a client stays in treatment and stays involved within a recovering community, the better the client’s chances are for long-term sustained recovery. We also offer a limited number of scholarships for those who have no insurance or can’t afford to pay. We need people who are insured to cover those that are not. Unfortunately, the staff does not work for free and no one but us pays the bills at the facility….

Each client’s recovery depends on intensive daily meetings, group therapies, lectures, and community support services available. The utilization of all of these programs results in the client gaining the strength and knowledge to work toward the goal of abstinence and lead a more productive life. And from what I understand by speaking to members of the community in Narrowsburg who have addiction in their family, this is not offered to them in the programs they are in….

In addition to the programs we currently have in Florida, we are implementing a GED prep program so those who want to continue their education can do so; we also work with our clients in regard to job placement, [though] these offerings (and the cost for them) are not covered by insurance.

In regard to the Affordable Care Act: As of 2014, it has required plans to cover mental health, substance use disorder services and will be required to cover them at parity with medical and surgical benefits (See article aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2013/mental/rb_mental.pdf)....

The owners and staff are committed to working with local non-profit/private drug and alcohol entities, community programs, schools and hospitals to form efficient collaborative efforts. We will be serving the families in our communities that recognize the need for help for their loved ones.…

Please join us in trying to fight this battle. Once you save a life, you never want to stop. It’s a wonderful feeling when you give a family back its child, its father, its mother, who might have died without the proper support. You can’t get a better reward than this.

[Editor’s note: This statement was edited for length, which exceeds The River Reporter’s word limit. The full statement can be found at www.riverreporter.com/news/14/2014/06/23/statements-narrowsburg-school-bidders.]