Home to the Hitchcock Center since 1997, the cornerstone for the former St. Mary's Seminary was laid in 1924. Photo, courtesy of Cleveland Restoration Society website.
Tucked on the outskirts of Cleveland’s Glenville area, on Ansel Road just north of Superior Avenue in an aging building that was once a monastery, sits the Hitchcock Center, quietly offering life-changing treatment to addicted women seeking to improve their lives.
The Hitchcock Center for Women is Cuyahoga County’s only residential substance abuse treatment provider focused solely on women and their children up to age 12,
The nonprofit center currently operates out of a nearly-century old building that is functionally obsolete, but staff, trustees and community partners are diligently putting together the final pieces for a brand new, $23 million facility.
“We are making it,” says Jason Joyce, Hitchcock’s executive director, “but the building we’re in needs substantial repairs and its technology is sorely outdated.”
Jason Joyce, executive director at Hitchcock Center since 2020
Partners in the proposed new development include the City of Cleveland ($3.5 million); Cleveland Clinic Foundation ($2.5 million); and the Cuyahoga County ADAMHS Board ($750k+). Recovery Housing construction will also use 9% Low Income Tax Credits from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
The next step is to approach Cuyahoga County for the final $3.5 million to complete the financing matching the city’s financial commitment. The county’s addition would allow the project to break ground later this year.
The new headquarters, which will be located adjacent to its current location, will allow the center to modernize its physical space and enhance its treatment work for women.
The center’s track record, Joyce says, indicates that after two years of abstinence, clients who complete typical care with sober housing are employed at a rate 76z% higher than those not supplied sober housing. 44 percent of Hitchcock’s clientele is comprised of African American women, according to Joyce.
The new building will increase treatment beds by 50 percent and create 53 more welcoming “dorm-like” rooms for clients. Modalities of group and individual counseling and case management services will be extended. State-of-the-art treatment and residential facilities, 36 short-term furnished bedrooms with private baths, 12 therapist consultation offices, and a new dining room with a full-service kitchen are additional amenities planned.
The Hitchcock Center is hoping to break ground later this year on a more modern facility than its current headquarters, which are almost 100 years old. Photo, courtesy of Cleveland Restoration Society website.
The center’s representatives made a presentation to Cuyahoga County Council earlier this month to generally favorable review, according to a spokesman for the agency. County councilwoman Yvonne Conwell, in whose district the Center is located, told TRD she is cautiously optimistic the county will provide the funding, although the path is not yet clear. ARPA funding is a possibility, she says, but the situation may require a series of funding proposals to get the job done.
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