Oriana House plans gets pushback from local residents

Residents wary of plans for rehabilitation center

Tempers flared Monday night as more than 40 parents voiced fears about a potential new neighbor.

Oriana House is under contract to buy the former Woman’s Home on Third Street, with plans for a rehabilitation center there.

“It’s common sense, who would put these people that close to any school?” said Christina McMahon, whose son attends St. Mary Catholic School, a private school housing pre-K through eighth grade at the corner of Marion and Fourth Streets.

McMahon, other parents and neighbors were gathered in the basement of the school in a meeting called by Oriana House, a private 501(c)3 nonprofit which provides addiction treatment services, community corrections programs and behavioral health services in Ohio.

Currently, Oriana runs both a halfway house in Reno for court-mandated clients and those transitioning back into the community from prison, and Rigel Recovery Services, an outpatient substance abuse treatment program.

Oriana also contracted with the county two weeks ago to design and facilitate a drug court with Washington County Common Pleas Judge Mark Kerenyi.

Monday’s meeting was about the next level in a continuum of care requested by the Washington County Behavioral Health Board in response to the opioid epidemic that has hit southeastern Ohio counties and Appalachia as a whole the hardest in the nation.

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