Organization extends help to homeless, addicted women

Hope is coming for Cobb County women who survive in the convergence of addiction and homelessness.

The Extension, a nonprofit agency, will open a center in May where women can live, receive treatment for their addiction and learn job skills. The Extension has operated a men’s residential treatment center for 14 years.

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Phil Skinner/pskinner@ajc.com

Tyler Driver, executive director of The Extension, checks out the former funeral home that is being renovated into a residential recovery facility for homeless, drug-addicted women.

“No one is doing what we do for men for women,” board Chairman Tommy Barrow said. “So many hurting women don’t have anywhere to get help.”

The program is designed for women without children.

Cher Randall, formerly a Cobb County elementary school teacher and methamphetamine addict, knows the need firsthand. “When you’re addicted, you lose everything,” she said. “In one year, I lost my home, my child, my job as a teacher.”

Randall’s downward spiral led to four convictions. Everything she owned fit into her backpack. She slept wherever someone would take her in. “I had no money to pay for treatment,” Randall said. “That’s one reason I kept putting it off. I couldn’t find a program like the Extension is offering.”

Randall finally got help through a similar program for women with children. Today, she works at the Extension while serving 15 years on probation.

Cobb County Juvenile Court Judge Juanita Stedman said the benefit to the county is huge. “We know there will never be enough residential beds for drug-addicted women,” she said.

The judge, who presides over family dependence treatment court, said she has about a dozen women who need to be in a program, and there is no place for them. “It’s very expensive for people to be in prison,” Stedman said. “It’s very expensive for people’s children to be in custody.”

They and the community are better served by the Extension’s program, which changes lives and saves money, she said.

Calls from women seeking help, court cases and a survey of the homeless in Cobb County all show the need for the new facility, said Tyler Driver, the Extension’s executive director. The organization’s board has raised $1.1 million toward a $1.3 million goal to buy and renovate a former funeral home in Marietta for the women’s facility. The operating budget for the first year is included, and the facility will have 20 beds.

Dr. Karl Steinichen, an obstetrician-gynecologist who volunteers at the men’s facility, will have an office in the women’s facility. He knows how difficult it is for addicted, homeless women to survive on the street.

“A woman has a lot fewer options for survival as a homeless person, and all of those options are dangerous ones,” he said. “Women on the street oftentimes have to use their sexuality to get by.”