New Post-Rehab Facility Scares Blanchard Residents

About 50 percent to 90 percent of people who go through rehab will relapse. That number makes Sheila Ridley want to help, but also makes some Blanchard residents scared.

Monday, April 7th 2014, 7:49 pm

By: News 9


About 50 percent to 90 percent of people who go through rehab will relapse. That number makes Sheila Ridley want to help, but also makes some Blanchard residents scared.

"This is not contagious... they are not going to be walking the streets looking for a fix," said Ridley. "They want to get better and stay clean and sober."

To Ridley, it's an ideal location.

"I'm 21 miles from OKC airport and 12 miles from OU," said Ridley. "It's really a great location to do what we want to do."

What she wants to do is open Second Story Ranch Extended Care Transitional Living. In shorter terms, she calls it the step down, the phase after rehab and before everyday life.

"You need to experience life as life really is," Ridley said.

So 10 to 20 residents will stay up to 90 days to work on the ranch and their addictions. To do so, Ridley must rezone five of her 100 acres to multi-family living. Something Amy Jones and the residents of Deer Run don't want to see happen.

"This is where they're going to come to break in and get a fix or have their drug dealers to come to get them a fix," Jones said.

The ranch is actually located on the corner of S.W. 24th and MacArthur. That is about a half of a mile, or as neighbors consider it, about four bus stops to the neighborhood of Deer Run.

"Our children right now feel safe, and that could change," Jones said.

Ridley wants residents to remember addiction is a disease.

"If not sympathy, but empathy and compassion, and I think the word addiction is very scary," Ridley said.

"I'm not stereotyping against the people in there, I just don't think it belongs in this neighborhood," Jones said.

The patients will pay for their stay out-of-pocket. The city of Blanchard will hold the planning meeting Thursday night.

Ridley also mentioned she is targeting executives, lawyers, doctors and other licensed professionals for the center. She hopes that patients with resources, who make it through recovery, will use their resources after recovery.

The patients will be allowed to leave but only with supervision from trained staff.

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