Editor’s note: There will be a town hall meeting tonight, March 3, about heroin and opioid abuse at the North Park Theatre (1428 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo). Doors open at 6:30pm, meeting begins at 7pm.

There is a ludicrous absence of sense in the distribution of funds for the care of opiate addicts at risk of dying from an overdose. “Heroin Epidemic,” the headlines scream, but funding has been cut for halfway houses or “community residences” who have an 80 percent success rate with women who complete the program, which provides round-the-clock supervision and care. You see, coming off heroin is the place where it hits the fan. If you try it all alone, you are liable to break down and succumb to an easy but final solution because going cold turkey is agonizingly torturous. If you are lucky enough to detox from heroin in a friendly atmosphere with regular doses of opiate-suppressing drugs to wean you off without cravings, you can get clean—it’s a miracle but you can get relief from the torture of withdrawal. However, that is only the beginning of your recovery. You are still a vulnerable baby loaded with rage and prepared to scream until you get satisfaction. Going home to your family is a recipe for failure if not disaster. You cannot take criticism politely from your exasperated relatives. If they haven’t been through what you’ve been through, their ignorance is too upsetting to tolerate. You need to be in a halfway house that supports your re-entry into society. You need to take part in meetings where you learn to share your feelings with a largely sympathetic audience. Surrounded by a gentler atmosphere, you gradually find yourself thinking maybe I don’t need heroin anymore.

Paradise House at 144 Mills Street has been the solution for more than 2,000 women since it opened in 1993. Most of them were crack or heroin addicts with children in foster care or living with the grandmother. Now, 22 years later, more than 2,000 graduates of Paradise are part of the solution. They have become useful contributors to society. They still participate in Narcotics Anonymous meetings because they know that to keep their recovery they have to give back some of what they received; that is, they need to pass on to newcomers what they have learned about living a good life free of addictive substances.

It takes two years of gradual restoration for an addict to be reinstated into society—two years in which the woman will have completed her education, found employment while continuing to socialize with other recovering friends, will have secured an apartment and started parenting her children. The new mandate for funding recovery in a halfway house through the department of social services restricts it to three months for a cost of $1,485. That means the addict whose sole focus for several years has been achieving her next hit will, in three months, have to be transformed into a self-motivated employee. The people responsible for this mandate must be living on a different planet. The typical heroin addict with three months of recovery cannot be trusted to hold a job longer than a week or two without support services. Addiction is a cancer that metastasizes; when the first one is given up, it transfers the energy into a new addiction. Ever notice how quickly recovering addicts balloon up fifty pounds?

The cost of supported restoration is about $24,000. Compare this with the $128,000 cost of keeping her in prison for two years. The same paper that headlines “Heroin Epidemic” will also educate about the need to raise $100 million for Catholic schools. It is hard to care about helping heroin addicts who don’t want to quit; but if an addict is willing to do the work of quitting, we should start giving him or her that chance and be fair about meeting the cost. We should fund halfway houses as they are the best solution. Visit paradisehouseny.org for more information or call 716-844-3315.

Reverend Anne Paris id founder and executive director of Paradise House.