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Drug 'refuge' forced to close

Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall lost state funding; judge says program is 'great' after recent changes.

Danny Perrine answers a question from counselor Jennifer Cmar during a counseling session Thursday, March 11, at the Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall in Hamilton. The rehabilitation house, the only in Butler County, is to close June 30.

Staff photo by Nick Daggy Danny Perrine answers a question from counselor Jennifer Cmar during a counseling session Thursday, March 11, at the Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall in Hamilton. The rehabilitation house, the only in Butler County, is to close June 30.

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Staff photo by Nick Daggy Henry Marcum of Middletown explains how SOS Hall in Hamilton has changed his life for the better.

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By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer Updated 12:46 AM Saturday, March 13, 2010

HAMILTON — Henry Marcum calls the three buildings that make up Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall in Hamilton “hallowed ground.”

“From the moment I walked in the door, I felt a peace come over me,” the 42-year-old Middletown man said. “There is something sacred about the SOS Hall.”

He said he “came home a mess” from a stint as a civilian truck driver in Iraq in 2003. “I started smoking crack, drinking quite a bit.”

That led to two arrests for drug possession in 2006 and 2007. He was put in a rehab program that wasn’t working, says he sought a transfer and ended up on a four-month waiting list. He asked his parole officer for help and was moved to the SOS Hall.

After more than five months there last year, Martin was clean. But addiction is never fully defeated, he admits. His relapse left him at his wife’s feet, begging for $10 to buy a hit of crack.

He choked up a bit as he remembered what SOS Hall director Marae Martin said when he asked for help: “She said, ‘Hank, we love you, and it’s OK. And we got a bed for you, and we’ll always have a bed for you. Your life is worth saving.’ ”

As of Thursday, March 11, he was clean 113 days.

After losing state funding — the state says people who go through the court-ordered program are more likely to be repeat offenders than if they’d received no treatment at all — the SOS Hall will close June 30.

SOS has served more than 4,000 people

More than 4,000 people have passed through the Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall in its 41 years in Hamilton, agency Director Marae Martin estimates.

The drug and alcohol halfway house consists of a historic, three-story brick home on Second Street, a two-story house with white siding next door, and a house on Wilson Avenue where people live as they work to get back on their feet.

When the state cuts funding at the end of June, all three buildings will be shuttered, she said, and the 20 or so employees will be out of jobs.

One of these workers is Penny Downard, who has worked there 11½ years. Her son struggled with drugs and alcohol and was killed by a drug dealer 11 years ago. Her goal, she said: “To see no other parent have to go through what I went through, because it’s rough.”

There is a six-week waiting list for the SOS Hall’s 35 beds, Martin said. Clients are usually ordered by the courts to attend the treatment facility as a condition of probation or parole.

Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth, who runs the county drug court, said he routinely refers people to the SOS Hall.

“As a drug court judge I thought it was a great program,” he said. “I wouldn’t have told you that three years ago.”

Spaeth said that until the last couple of years, the SOS Hall had a reputation for putting people back on the streets who were far from cleaned up. But he has seen improvements.

Martin said the program has been tweaked in recent years to improve its success — the state expressed concerns, and they addressed them.

“We’ve made all the recommended changes,” she said.

But state officials said it’s too late. They told the agency this week to expect to lose all of its $754,156 operating budget after it fared poorly in a University of Cincinnati study commissioned by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Instead, the money and clients will be shifted to other halfway houses with better success rates. The closest is the Talbert House, Turtle Creek Center in Lebanon.

The study found that people who went through the SOS Hall were more likely to be repeat criminal offenders than people with no treatment at all. The specifics of the study won’t be released until March 18. But Martin said it’s based on research from several years ago, before they made changes.

Across the street from the hall on Second Street is the county minimum security jail. Surrounding them, drug deals are frequent, according to Henry Marcum, a resident at the SOS Hall.

“This is a safe haven in the middle of chaos,” Marcum said. “This is a refuge.”

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