Rhea County Residents On Landfill Road Concerned About Rehab House

The Rhea County Commission spent over an hour discussing with several persons from the Hidden Hollow Subdivision wanting answers to the county leasing a piece of property on Landfill Road to Our Father's House to run a rehabilitation house.

Commissioner Leo Stephens put the item on the workshop agenda to be discussed by the commission. The area in question is in his fourth district. He said, “I have gotten a lot of phone calls and visits by people who have lived in the area who have questions on what the county was starting up."

County Executive Jim Vincent said a local contractor, Jeremy Revis, had stepped up to do some of the repairs to the house that will be used.

The commission voted at its July 16 meeting to approve $70,000 from the opioid settlement funds to renovate the building on Landfill Road. It also approved a lease agreement with Our Father's House, Inc. for the home located at 165 Landfill Road. Our Father’s House is run by a group of churches and Christian leaders for the rehabilitation of opioid addicted persons. They also discussed the matter during the July 9 workshop.

County Executive Vincent told the Commission and the audience that this is all part of the opioid settlement and was approved by the State Opioid Board.

“They are using the program that we have started here in Rhea County as a model for other counties in the state to follow,” said Mr. Vincent.

He said this type of faith-based program that will be implemented has a very high rate of rehabilitation over normal rehab programs.

“What we have set up should have close to a 60 percent rehabilitation results versus the 15 to 20 percent of a normal program,” said Mr. Vincent.

Jim Woychuk, senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Dayton and secretary of the Our Father's House, Inc., said, “There are several churches in Rhea County involved in this. This is coming out of our ministry that we are currently doing in the Rhea County Jail on Monday nights. We have a group of women who go on Wednesday to minister to the female section of the jail.”

Several other people in the group introduced themselves to the commission which included the pastor of the Lakewood Baptist Church, retired Rhea County teacher Buddy Ballentine and Bob Nordyke. Also speaking was Justin Daniels, who told the commission he was a reformed methamphetamine user and dealer who went to prison in 2019 and then turned his life around. He has since become a minister himself. He said, “I want to create a place where my son can raise his family and not have to worry about them. This year I have buried 10 persons from overdoses from addiction to drugs."

Steve Zimmerman, a Rhea County native whose family worked in the Cedine Bible Camp located on Watts Bar Lake north of Spring City spoke as did member John Jouben, who said, “I am so involved in the commitment to the opioid problem that I had thought about getting two trailers and setting them up on my property to house some of these persons to help them out. But this is more than one person can handle by themselves.”

County Executive Vincent then told the commission that he had invited the board to the meeting to explain a little more about what Our Father's House was about. He said, “I was a little weak in my presentation of this group before. They have been working in our jail and have had a lot of success in reaching some of these addicts and helping them.”

Vice Chairman Stephens said, “The people in my district have concerns. Do they have any security for the house and can these people just come and go as they please?”

Wendy Yates, a resident on Landfill Road, said, ”We’ve heard all the stories, and this project is too close to home. We don’t want to see our property values go down like what happened in Rutherford County when they put a similar facility in there.”

She said that they have heard that they would also be bringing in homeless people besides the drug rehab patients. “I don’t understand why they are bringing this out in the county. There is nothing out here as far as services or resources for them. We’re not afraid, but does it need to be near a subdivision.” She said it was being said the county was considering putting a potter’s field on the property as well.

Tim Hitchcock asked where else has this program worked. He said, "Are there any other halfway houses in Rhea County? Why can’t the county use these instead of coming out in our neighborhood?" He then asked commissioners if there is anywhere else to put this beside Landfill Road.

He said, “My property is 900 feet away from where this will be going. There are no services out here, no resources. Why has this gotten this far without any of the neighbors being asked what they feel about this? It’s bad enough that I have to pick up a five-gallon bucket of trash every day from my property that trucks the county is making money off of leaves on my road by my property. Why doesn’t the Commission send out a mailer to everyone and find out what they think? Weve been told there will be 12 men in a three-bedroom house that will be on a septic tank. It won’t hold it."

Mr. Vincent said he had received information from people in Athens from a place called The Grace House. The Grace House is a facility dedicated to the long-term treatment of alcohol and drug addicted men. They are located in downtown Athens, Tn.

Mr. Jouben added, ”These people will be vetted very carefully. They will be drug tested and will be on work release. They will have to be committed for one full year with 24/7 supervision." He said that these people will not be walking the streets. They will be transported by someone with the program to where they need to go such as work, doctors, and other program needs.

Mr. Vincent added that each one will also have to go through state-required counseling as well as the other programs. “If we have a problem, it will be dealt with quickly and firmly.”

Mr. Jouben added that a faith-based recovery does a lot better than a conventional one. He said, “We are not bringing people from outside the county in. Just people from Rhea County.”

Commission Chairman Jim Reed ended the discussion by saying, ”This happens with a lot of projects that we do. We put it in your neighborhood and you’re not happy. We pull it and put it somewhere else, and they are not happy. Doesn’t matter where you put anything people will still complain. No matter what we do we will get some feedback. We need everyone to realize that we have discussed this numerous times, and we have not taken it lightly.”

No further action was taken on the matter at this time.