Bay Ridge

Drug rehab center opens in Bay Ridge

More than 2 dozen clients have sought help

September 17, 2014 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Donna Mae DePola (seated) president and CEO of the Sunset park-based drug and alcohol counseling program, Resource Training and Counseling Center, announced that the center has opened up a new site in Bay Ridge. She is pictured with Dona Pagan, the center’s vice president.
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A Sunset Park-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation center that has been operating for two decades has opened up a satellite site in neighboring Bay Ridge and has already seen a big demand for its services, the founder announced this week.

Speaking at a Community Board 10 meeting on Sept. 15, Donna Mae DePola, president and CEO of the Resource Training and Counseling Center, said her organization opened its new site at 408 77th St. on July 18. The new center, like the main branch at 449 39th St. in Sunset Park, offers rehabilitation and counseling services to drug and alcohol abusers.

“We have 27 clients,” DePola told community board members. The board advocates on behalf of the residents of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights. “All of the clients are voluntary. They are not mandated by the court to be there,” DePola said.

Sources told the Brooklyn Eagle that DePola was asked by several civic and religious leaders in the Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights area to set up shop in the community to help stem a rising tide of prescription drug addiction and heroin use among young people. Leaders were impressed by her track record in Sunset Park, sources said.

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Habib Joudeh, owner of Pharmacy on 5th in Bay Ridge, donated $5,000 to help get the new center up and running. Joudeh is also a founder of the Arab-American Association of New York and is a member of the Fifth Avenue Bay Ridge Business Improvement District. Assemblymember Felix Ortiz (D-Sunset Park-Bay Ridge) donated a van to help transport clients.

DePola invited community board members to visit the new site, but cautioned them to call first. “We want to respect the privacy of our clients,” she said, adding that surprise visits are not a good idea.

DePola founded the Resource Training and Counseling Center 20 years ago to help addicts and alcoholics get off drugs and drink, reclaim their lives and move forward.

The Sunset Park center, headquartered in a five-story brick building, has 22 employees and offers a wide variety of services, including substance abuse assessments, outpatient chemical dependency treatment, outpatient detox, counseling, medication management, programs to combat DWI, sessions with volunteer recovery coaches and help in becoming employment-ready.

DePola, who was born and raised in Sunset Park, told the Eagle in an interview in April that she’s proud of the work done at the center.

“People from all over come here. We have treatment on demand, meaning that you can walk in here off the street and we start getting you the help that you need immediately,” she said.

Eighty-five percent of the people who walk in the Sunset Park center’s front door are coming voluntarily because they want to straighten out their lives, while 15 percent have been ordered to go there by the court to seek counseling and treatment following a DWI or drug conviction.


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