SALISBURY – Even with unpredictable financial times staring them in the face, the indominable leadership of The Link House refused to give up on providing a safe residential space for women who are recovering from addictions.
Headed by executive director Christine Turner, the Link House closed the Maris Center for Women on the last day of June and the next day, July 1, opened the same space at 197 Elm St. as the organization’s second Women’s Independent Sober House (WISH) in the greater Newburyport area.
“We’re still standing,” Turner said last week. “It would have been easy to close it.”
After a 25-year history of helping women in the area turn their lives around at the Maris Center, Turner and her team, including Krystle Brown, the development director, refused to accept no from the state Public Health agencies. The state had been providing $250,000 a year in state and federal funds to underwrite the programs and care at the Maris Center.
The Link House pivoted to cut operational costs, including twenty-four-hour staffing to keep the doors open.
Turner said it was a traumatic time for both the staff and the women who lived there, fearful they would have to leave because of the state’s budget cut.
To close it would also have made The Link House financially stronger, she said, but the program and its location in Salisbury were too important to this group of women and to the organization.
The first WISH program opened in Newburyport in 2020.
WISH Salisbury will house 20 low-income women in recovery in single rooms. Ten women, who were also in Maris, were placed in other facilities where they could get the higher level of treatment they needed.
The Link House is soliciting donations of $300 per room to pay for new curtains, bedding and pillows. “Everybody needs a new pillow” Turner said.
The WISH program has different requirements for its residents. Members must be free of substance use and contract to abstain from all substance use and other addictive behaviors. They must attend in-house 12-step meetings, participate in weekly house meetings, consent to the house rules and fully participate in all additional aspects of recovery.
To ensure a successful transition to independent living, residents are required to work and pay a monthly or weekly program fee based on their income level. Peer mentorship is the cornerstone of the program, building upon positive relationships among residents to assist each other with relapse prevention skills, effectively manage daily life stressors, coordinate with community supports, and empower them on their own recovery journey.
WISH has an onsite, live-in peer supervisor responsible for ensuring a safe, supportive and healing environment, the Link House website states.
The Link House has a staff of 50, of which 60 percent are in recovery themselves, a fact that is a point of pride to Turner and her team.
Founded in 1972, the Link House provides mental health services in the Greater Newburyport community.
What began as a single residential program for men struggling with addiction to alcohol, today is four residential programs for men and women with 81 beds in total, and two outpatient programs — the Center for Behavioral Health for adults, and the Children and Teen Center for Help (CATCH), for children ages five to 18, according to its website.
Brown said there are many ways folks can support the organization.
“Support us by sharing our message, donations always help, or through grant opportunities. We’re also looking for new board members who want to be actively involved in creating solutions to mental health and addiction challenges in our area,” Brown said.
For more information, call 978-462-0787 or visit the website LinkHouseInc.org.
