Ohio lawmakers seek $400K for faith-based anti-heroin effort

HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) — Ohio legislators are seeking $400,000 to help expand a faith-based anti-heroin effort in a hard-hit southwest Ohio community.

The Christian-based Genesis Center of Excellence in Hamilton already has treated about 15 people – men ages 18-50 – in a residential recovery program. That number is expected to climb to as many as 25 in the coming weeks.

The organization hopes to offer a detox unit, outpatient treatment, a doctor’s office and job and education help in an area that has seen record rates of overdose deaths. Local lawmakers were able to place $400,000 in the proposed state capital budget to help make about $2.3 million in improvements. The organization had requested $1.2 million.

Dr. Quinton Moss, the executive director, told the Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News the effort will still pursue its goals, promising to be good stewards of any money the state provides.

“It just means that what we’re trying to accomplish will just take a little more time,” Moss said.

Moss has psychiatry offices in Hamilton and West Chester that eventually will be merged into a former junior high school building with other services. Moss, nurse practitioners, another physician and a staff of counselors will work together out of the building.