Life Help’s Fred Guenther is proud of the services offered at Denton House, but he’s looking forward to having a new building for the alcohol and drug treatment facility that better suits those services.
The new 14,749-square-foot building on Mississippi 7 is expected to open around the end of October and will house all of Life Help’s alcohol and drug programs. It is more than twice the size of the current Denton House on U.S. 82.
It will house 44 people — 32 men and 12 women. The current site, which is about 70 years old, can house only 32.
The treatment of alcohol and drug abuse has become significantly modernized and more professionalized just in the last 10 years, and the new building will reflect that progress, said Guenther, Life Help’s alcohol and drug residential services coordinator.
“It’s not just a new building,” he said. “It is actually a place that’s going to allow us to, I think, perform better.”
Some services now spread out over multiple locations will be combined under one roof. The building will be more accessible to the community and will bridge the gap between inpatient and outpatient services, said Dorothy Robertson, Life Help’s deputy director for public relations and outpatient substance abuse coordinator.
It will be more attractive to clients, too, Guenther said.
“Quite frankly, if somebody pulls up and sees a 70-year-old building, they’ll say, ‘Ehh, I don’t know if I want to go to this place,’” he said. “Well, this is going to change that, I guarantee you.”
Construction started Sept. 27, 2008, after seven or eight years of discussions. JBHM Architects of Columbus designed it, and Jackson Construction of Grenada built it.
The final inspection is scheduled Oct. 15, and the move should be completed around the end of the month, Guenther said.
All services will be available from the day it opens, he said: “We’ll be willing to walk in the door and be going full speed. All we need is furniture.”
Not much will be moved from the current Denton House. The furniture for client use will be all new. There also will be new washers and dryers, new office equipment, and a kitchen where several hundred meals can be prepared each day.
Herbert Loving, director of the Bureau of Alcohol and drug Abuse at the Mississippi Department of Health, said the new facility will be exceptional. This kind of project requires a lot of help from communities as well as governments, he said.
“Everybody deserves a great deal of credit, especially in the local community, because we can’t do anything without them,” Loving said.
The project was financed through USDA Rural Development. Paul Juchheim, from Rural Development’s Grenada district, has inspected the site and was instrumental in arranging a 40-year loan for the work.
Life Help Executive Director Madolyn Smith also was very involved in the planning, and Loving has kept tabs on the project regularly.
Eventually, Guenther hopes to be able to offer extended, or transitional, treatment at Denton House. The current residential program lasts 45 days, but he would like to work with the state Department of Mental Health and Department of Rehabilitation Services to offer options for longer periods. That wouldn’t be possible at the current location, he said.
