Athena House, Santa Rosa treatment facility for women, shutting its doors Friday

A much-needed, women-only drug treatment facility is closing, and Shirlee Zane is furious.

The former Sonoma County Supervisor is now, among other things, a court-appointed special advocate for traumatized youths in the county’s foster system. In that role she was recently informed by a Child Protective Services officer working on her case that, although the child’s mother would soon be released from jail, there was no bed for her in any area drug treatment facility. Until the mother had completed treatment, she couldn’t be reunited with her child.

This happens frequently, said Zane. “Because we don’t have enough beds, we have to delay reunification.”

That’s why she and others are so upset about the closure of Athena House, the Santa Rosa-based residential treatment program that offered 40 beds for women struggling with substance abuse.

While the county is working to clear the latest homeless encampment along the Joe Rodota Trail, it’s losing a long-term residential facility that might have helped some of the women camped there.

“I wish people were as upset about losing 40 drug treatment beds for women as they are about the closure of the Joe Rodota Trail,” said Zane.

After 33 years, Athena House ends operations Friday, July 29, when its last five clients will complete their programs, according to Thomas Stuebner, CEO of California Human Development, the facility’s parent company.

“Athena House was a unique and invaluable resource to so many women and their kids, said State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg. “When so many are challenged with addiction in the North Bay, we need more programs like this in our community, not fewer.”

Among the rays of hope for the endangered program: McGuire and his staff have had “initial conversations” with Athena House supporters about reviving it, “and we’ll be sitting down in the coming weeks to go in-depth on their long-term financial plans.”

Chris Coursey, who succeeded Zane as Supervisor of District 3, described Athena House as “a life changing program” whose closure “leaves a big hole.”

“I’m very concerned about the lack of treatment programs for women in Sonoma County right now,” said Coursey, who noted that some Athena House clients were able to find treatment in San Francisco. “It’s good they have someplace to go. But it’s not as good as being in the community where they may have support from family and friends.”

Stone House, the fortresslike building on Highway 12 that was home to the Athena House program, is now on market, said Stuebner, along with Hope Village in Rincon Valley, which consists of transitional homes with sober living environments for another two dozen women.

According to a statement released by the company in May, the decision to close Athena House was forced by a number of factors, including a “drastically reduced” number of patients served because of the COVID-19 epidemic, “inadequate reimbursement rates, late payments from delayed contracts, and rampant inflation” — a confluence of events Stuebner described as “a perfect storm.”

In the meantime, despite efforts of Athena House alumna Jasmine Palmer and others, no deep-pocketed donor has stepped forward to purchase either of the properties to save those programs.

“If we care about our community, this is a huge deal,” said Palmer, a care coordinator for unhoused people at a Santa Rosa health clinic who helped organize a fundraiser for Athena House on July 23rd. That gala raised around $20,000 — less than 10% of what it would need to purchase the three lots in Rincon Valley.

“Substance use, homelessness, incarceration, mental health — they’re all intertwined. We can’t care about one and not the rest,” said Palmer, who pointed out that it costs $100,000 to put up a prisoner at the county jail for a year. A year’s treatment at Athena House is half that.

Palmer and her small army of like-minded advocates have deluged Gov. Gavin Newsom with emails, pleading for his intercession, to no avail. The scant to middling interest and engagement they’ve generated from local and state politicians has been disappointing, she said.

Zane too, noted the lack of statewide interest.

“We should be outraged, as a community and a county, with all the billions of taxpayer dollars sitting in Sacramento,” said Zane, referring to California’s $49 billion budget surplus.

“Yet we’re doing away with 40 treatment beds for women? That’s crazy — and hypocritical. Gavin Newsom is sitting on billions of dollars, but he can’t help us with these beds. It’s obscene, it really is.”

The news is not all bad. While Stone House is likely to be sold, the Athena House program — its mission; the services it provides — is portable. While California Human Development is stepping away, other groups have expressed interest in becoming the program’s new service.

The strongest contender is Buckelew Programs, which provides mental health and addiction services, included supported housing, to residents of the North Bay.

While Buckelew would be happy to provide the residential treatment services to clients of Athena House, said Chris Kughn, the nonprofit’s CEO, “it’s not up to me, it’s up to the county, and its procurement process.”

That process will be directed, and that contract granted, by Sonoma County’s department of Behavioral Health Services.

In the meantime, Kughn is focused on Hope Village, the property in Rincon Valley, which provided a sober living environment for graduates of Athena House. Operating that facility would not require a county contract.

Sometime next year, Sonoma County will opt into California’s Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System, which expands services and approaches for treating substance abuse disorders. When that happens, the county will be eligible for “a whole slew of services,” said Kughn. It may also, he hopes, allow the program he and Palmer hope to rescue — call it Athena House 2.0 — to have a residential treatment facility and a sober living facility at the same site.

“That’s sort of the nutshell fantasy vision,” said Kughn, although “we don’t quite have a business plan.”

Or, at this point, a property.

It’s a major hitch. “If they don’t own the house, I don’t have $3 million to put down for the house,” he said.

While that recent fundraiser barely put a dent in that amount, its purpose was primarily to raise awareness, “and hopefully reel in some larger donors,” said Palmer, who is exhausted, she admitted, after fighting this battle since May. “But I’m not giving up.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.