Taylorville Safe Passage Program continues to find addicts help they need
TAYLORVILLE, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — The Taylorville Safe Passage Program has been up and running for years now. Police Chief Dwayne Wheeler says they have hit quite the milestone.
“We’ve helped over 1,000 citizens get help,” Wheeler said.
The program takes people who are addicted to drugs, and instead of locking them in jail, the department works to find them space in area rehab centers.
“The stigma with you know, alcoholism, and the stigma with narcotics, or narcotics,” Wheeler said. “Abuse is gone. I mean, today, if you say, hey, I’m addicted to meth, you know, people are not shocked anymore by this.”
Other cities have tried to replicate it’s success. Wheeler says the secret is getting the entire department, and the community to buy in, and people who go through the program say that is noticeable.
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“After I talked to chief and got to know people in the safe passage program, I realized that just wasn’t the case,” Jenna Sparling said. “They just care for you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“It’s getting to the point where I’ll be out somewhere and see what the cost of recipe for he came up to me how proud they are,” Ryan Buerk said.
Leading this program for the department is Denise Evans. She left her job as a member of Kincaid’s Village Board of Trustees to help Wheeler get the program started. Now, there’s a long list of people who credit her for her recovery. They say she and her team basically refuse to let them fail.
“Denise, and then if they don’t hear from me on a couple of days, they’re blowing your phone up, making sure you’re all right,” Buerk said.
Evans said that is necessary.
“It’s like tough love, whatever, you have to say like, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to go to rehab, you’re going to get through it, you’re not going to leave, then I’m going to help you after you get out.”
Evans doesn’t stop when she drops somebody off at a rehab center.
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“Denise has done helped so many people that she knows several places she can call for you. She she knows what will work best,” Brooke Burney, another person who went through Safe Passage said.
She has built an elaborate network, and when somebody gets out of rehab, she will often help them find clothes and a place to live.
“A drug addict doesn’t want to be a drug addict,” Evans said. “A drug is a drug addict, because something has happened in their life, there’s been trauma, there’s been something happened. When they were very small, they might have had problems at home, they might have been abused, anything like that, that trauma isn’t stay with you for the rest of your life.”
People who have gone through the program, like Jenna sparling, say it has made their community feel so much safer.
“It’s changing our entire community,” Sparling said. “Just this just this program has changed this community for the better.”
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