New recovery house opens

Staff report

YOUnGSTOWN

A new 12-bed recovery-supportive housing facility for women adjacent to the Neil Kennedy Recovery Centers’ main campus, formerly known as the Alcoholic Clinic, at 2151 Rush Blvd., formally opened Wednesday.

The new recovery house, for which ground was broken last September, is NKRC’s fourth temporary residential facility for people in the early stages of recovery from alcohol or drug abuse.

The new $380,000 halfway house was made possible by an anonymous donor and by funds from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board and the J. Ford Crandall Memorial Foundation.

At the donor’s request, the new facility is named for the local eye doctors, Dr. George Pugh, who is deceased; and Drs. Albert Cinelli and H.S. Wang, all ophthalmologists; and Dr. Robert Gerberry, an optometrist.

The opening of the Pugh, Cinelli, Wang and Gerberry House followed construction of Gelbman House in 2014 and Doc’s Place in 2015, both also halfway houses near the NKRC campus.

NKRC was the nation’s first nonprofit addiction-treatment facility of its kind.

Since its inception in 1946 as the Youngstown Committee on Alcoholism Inc., NKRC has provided the Mahoning Valley with a secure substance-abuse treatment facility.

In 1999, it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gateway Rehab, an Aliquippa, Pa.-based private, nonprofit organization that conducts addiction education, prevention, research and treatment activities.

Gateway serves almost 1,700 people daily through four divisions in Ohio and western Pennsylvania.