Pearl House welcomes first residents

Eight years and eight million dollars later, Pearl House Zanesville is a reality and a home.

The 34-unit apartment building at the corner of South and Third streets in Zanesville will provide housing for people in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction.

"The idea is to provide safe and affordable recovery-supported housing for people so they can really get into recovery and increase their quality of life, so they can get into long-term recovery," said Steve Carrel, former director of Muskingum Behavioral Health, who conceived the project eight years ago and helped guide it to completion after his retirement.

"If you provide people with safe, affordable housing, some problems go away, some problems decrease, and most become manageable," Carrel said. This allows residents to focus more on recovery and lessens some of the triggers that may cause a relapse. "It wipes out a whole bunch of that stress, not all of it, there are other things, but they become manageable because people don't have to worry about where they are going to live." Some who will move into the Pearl House have been couch surfing, drifting from place to place to find a roof over their heads or living on the streets. Having that stable housing will allow some to get their families together again and allow them to "live a healthy life without the use of mind-altering chemicals," he added.

Many entities came together to make Pearl House possible, Carrel said. "It took Zanesville Metropolitan Housing, the City of Zanesville, Muskingum Behavioral Health, Gorsuch Construction, Fairfield Homes," he said. "I lost track of how many funders there are for this place," he said.

One of the things that makes the Pearl House unique is Natasha Reed. She is the building's first case manager and will have an office on the first floor, helping residents with their treatment and recovery. "I'm super grateful to be part of this," she said. "It will be an asset to our community. People in recovery need housing, some people are coming out of really bad situations and they have nowhere to go, so they stay in a bad situation. Finding them stable housing where they are in a safe and healthy environment is crucial for people's recovery."

Sylvester Rose had been homeless for a year before becoming one of the first to move in to Pearl House on Wednesday. "I have been waiting for this moment," he said, "I just so excited." Having a stable place to live is "very important," he said, and having a case manager on site "is a big deal. I don't know how I would have done it," he said of his four months sober, "if it wasn't for my case manager."

"The case manager is the lynchpin to the whole thing," Carrel said. "Making sure needs get met. If anybody has any problems or issues, the case manager is going to hook them up with community services."

Having a stable home will make it easier for residents to get jobs if they are not already employed, and offer the opportunity to learn life skills often taken for granted by those not battling addiction. Those life skills, like learning how pay bills and taking care of their responsibilities, will help when residents decide to leave Pearl House, Reed said.

Alexiah Hampton, who heard about Pearl House through her councilor at Muskingum Behavioral Health had been staying with her grandmother before moving in on Wednesday with her daughter Harmony, 6. "It will make me less dependent," she said. Recovery "is a struggle" she said, but "having this place will make life easier."

While support will be available, the staff at Pearl House are not prison guards. "We are here to help, not to police," Carrel said.

"This is their home. I don't have someone checking on me, sitting outside my home," he said. "Word travels fast in a building like this," Carrel said. "Folks want to make it in recovery, if anything is out of kilter, we are going to hear about it."

The Pearl House is project-based Section 8 housing. Unlike regular Section 8 housing, where a person qualifies for housing assistance and receives a voucher, with project based Section 8 the voucher stays with the apartment. Those that qualify to live in Pearl House, people who are in and following a recovery plan as well as meeting income requirements, will sign a yearly lease to live there. As they develop the life skills and work on their recovery, many move out to find their own housing. Some may stay for years, others may move on quickly, Carrel said.

"I have seen daily miracles in recovery housing," he said. "I see people living the lives they were meant to be, they just got off the beaten path."

For more information about Pearl House, call Muskingum Behavioral Health at 740-454-1266