New rehab center in Santa Rosa will bolster local options for drug and alcohol treatment

The county’s largest provider of drug and alcohol treatment services for low-income residents is to reopen a drug addiction recovery and detox center in Santa Rosa, restoring a key element to the landscape of addiction services in Sonoma County and also adding a new component.

The facility will have 40 beds for men with low or no income who need residential treatment for an average of 30 to 90 days. Another 10 beds will be for men withdrawing from drugs or alcohol — usually a period of three to seven days — and who are medically monitored and treated with medication.

That form of detox, medically managed withdrawal, is a first in the region for low-income patients.

“It'll really be different from any other treatment center for low-income individuals in Northern California,” said Michael O’Brien, regional vice president at Center Point DAAC, the nonprofit that is opening and will operate what will be named the Dr. Sushma D. Taylor Recovery Center.

“The ability to help people be able to actually endure that withdrawal and make it through without giving up, means that significantly more of these folks will be successful in their recovery,” he said.

The county contracts with Center Point DAAC to provide drug and alcohol treatment for low-income residents. The nonprofit closed its previous Santa Rosa rehab center, Turning Point, in 2022 over issues to do with its lease. It continued to take patients referred by the county until 2023, sending them to a Napa facility.

“This will increase capacity within the county and serve to assist in addressing substance abuse needs in our county,” said Tina Rivera, director of the county’s Department of Health Services. “Having this facility in the county is a great thing for the continuum.”

California Senate President Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg was among the speakers who appeared at a Friday ribbon-cutting ceremony at the rehab, located in the former Sonoma Avenue headquarters of Burbank Housing.

The $7.6 million facility was funded by the state Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program​ to build or rehabilitate real estate for mental health, substance abuse and homelessness-related projects.

The nonprofit got the funding partly because "there is a lack of residential substance use disorder treatment facilities in Sonoma County," said Anthony Cava, a spokesperson for the state Department of Health Care Services. "This has an adverse impact not only in Sonoma County, but has equally reduced the availability of much-needed behavioral health capacity in the neighboring counties of Marin and Napa."

O’Brien said between 500 and 1,000 patients are expected to be served at the new rehab the first year.

The 10,974-square-foot center has 20 bedrooms in the low slung former Burbank headquarters, each with plentiful natural light, a commercial kitchen, meeting rooms, a large dining area, and a dormitory-style detox section attached to a medical office.

The facility is also distinguished by its status as a teaching program for a Sutter Hospital addiction medicine fellowship under which two family physicians will receive training through the year in caring for patients with substance use disorders.

“It's going to be really crucial, because if we think about levels of care that patients need, currently we don't really have anything in the middle between outpatient and acute hospital setting where we can continue to provide medical treatment for people's addiction in a safe and supported space,” said Dr. Erin Lund, who directs the fellowship program.

Addiction medicine practitioners need to understand which level of care people being treated for substance use disorders need, Lund said, “so this adds a whole extra level of care that they'll get exposure to and familiarity with and gain comfort in. Like what is appropriate for this setting? What can they actually do in that setting versus, ‘Oh, this patient is too sick. We got to bring them to the hospital,’ or, ‘Hey, this person actually probably could have managed this on their own at home.’”

Research has shown that withdrawal management programs such as the new facility offers improve the odds of successful substance abuse treatment and are often safer, as well, Lund said.

The new facility — named for the president of Center Point DAAC’s Board of Directors — will help address a shortage of treatment options, said Chris Kughn, CEO of Buckelew Program, one of the region’s other primary providers of substance abuse treatment.

“It's phenomenal. We have had a lack of access to beds for quite some time, so the more opportunities we have for people to get residential treatment and the detox treatment is just essential for our county and our community,” said Kughn.

He said the rehab will also be important to Sonoma County’s ability to fulfill its obligations under the Drug Medi-Cal-Organized Delivery System, a state program that expands upon the federal Medicaid program for low-income people to improve access to substance abuse treatment.

Sonoma County passed up an opportunity to join the program in 2018 — the state estimated it could have delivered $38 million to the county over its first three years alone — and the number of residents getting treatment each year has since declined sharply.

“This is going to be huge for Sonoma County to actually roll out Drug Medi-Cal, and it's going to really expand treatment options,” said Kughn.

The new rehab center is scheduled to open in May.

Last June, the health services department decided to switch operators of Orenda Center — from Center Point DAAC to Buckelew — which had been the county’s only inpatient detox facility for low-income residents.

But because Buckelew did not have a license to operate Orenda when the county made that change, local residents needing a detox have had to go to a Marin County facility run by Buckelew. The license is expected to be in place by July, Kughn said. Orenda did not offer medication or medical monitoring to detox patients.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @jeremyhay