Alvis breaks ground for $25 million expansion at Alum Creek reentry and treatment facility
Alvis Inc. formally broke ground Friday on a $25 million expansion at its Southside reentry and treatment center, providing much-needed additional beds and services to men and women trying to overcome addictions and criminal records.
“It’s a terrible day for me when I recognize a person standing in front of me has certain needs that need to be able to function, and then having to find out that it’s going to be six, seven, eight, nine weeks before a bed is available for them to receive these services that they need,” said Judge Stephen L. McIntosh, administrative judge in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and an Alvis board member. “Having an expansion like this is providing more beds for more services for the people that I have to deal with in the court system each and every day.”
McIntosh joined other local officials to turn ceremonial shovels Friday and praise the work of Alvis, a longtime local nonprofit that provides reentry, behavioral health and other services to about 8,000 Ohioans annually.
The new building is projected to be completed in about a year, while the renovations to the existing building will be completed in early 2023.
Denise Robinson, Alvis’ president and CEO, said the Alum Creek location was the first community reentry residential facility built in Franklin County. For more than 20 years, it has been working to address addiction and mental health issues, including offering job training, transitional housing, counseling and other services.
“This facility will help to address the community’s needs for additional capacity for treatment and transitional support for individuals with justice involvement, and we are grateful to have so many partners and supporters in central Ohio. The whole community can take a proactive approach to reentry," she said in a released statement.
About 79% of people who complete Alvis programming do not return to the criminal justice system, Robinson said.
“You might wonder, why should we do this for people who have committed a crime?” Robinson said. “The answer all depends on your desired outcome. If you put a person with treatment needs in prison or jail but you do not provide any services, you have a 50% chance that person will end right back up in the criminal justice system.”
“Punishment alone, sending someone to prison without addressing their underlying issues, is much more likely to set up a person to return to the old behavior, often with the help of criminal associates they meet while in prison,” said Keith Stevens, immediate past chairman of the Alvis board and the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce. “That doesn’t do any of us any good.”
Alvis’ Alum Creek location currently has space for 104 people. The expanded facilities will accommodate those beds, plus about 175 from other Alvis locations in Columbus, providing space for about 350 people, Robinson said.
The existing Alvis building at Alum Creek will be renovated and serve women, while a new two-story building being constructed at the site will serve men.
“Alvis reentry centers provide much more than food and shelter,” said Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther. “They give men and women a second chance. And if you believe in redemption the way I do, and the way my faith teaches and instructs me, this is an incredible opportunity to lift up and restore our neighbors and their families.”
State Sen. Hearcel Craig, D-Columbus, said Alvis House "has been a trailblazer and an active partner in making our community healthier, safer, more equitable and certainly more vibrant. The truth is, today is more than about bricks and mortar. It really has to do with the lives… the marginalized in our community.”
Alvis has leased county-owned property on Alum Creek Drive since late 1999. Franklin County commissioners earlier this year approved a 40-year extension to the lease to accommodate the planned expansion.
The commissioners also signed off on $6.5 million in financing, through Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, bonds to help move the planned Alvis Alum Creek expansion forward.
“At Franklin County, we’re thinking very deeply about how we can transform the most vulnerable among us and provide them with a way of life that leads to economic mobility and opportunity,” said Commissioner Kevin Boyce. “... We see Alvis as partners in this process.”
Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said Alvis and others provide men and women completing prison terms with “a gigantic safety net” and the means for “rehabilitation and redemption” as they work to reenter their communities.
“To see them expand, it just does my heart good, because that just means that many more of our people are going to have somewhere to go and somewhere to help them,” she said.
mkovac@dispatch.com
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