NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — An organization known to help homeless women battling addiction or mental health issues is getting its own help to improve services.
Mending Hearts has a campus of homes providing a variety of recovery services along Albion Street in West Nashville, and serves an average of 500 indigent women every year.
On Friday, city officials including Mayor David Briley joined the Tennessee Housing Development Agency (THDA) to announce a $437,190 grant to help fund an eight-bedroom transitional living facility. It will replace a much older building that is reminiscent of how the neighborhood used to be before the organization moved in more than a decade ago.
"This was a totally addicted community," Mending Hearts President & CEO Trina Frierson told NewsChannel 5. "There were several dope houses around here, and God has been able to put us in a position and we've been able to lease out and now buy all of them."
The group has taken over 22 homes in a four-block radius of the neighborhood.
Frierson also held an open house to unveil two new homes with 16 bedrooms to accommodate the women who completed the recovery program's first two phases and have a job. One of the people already benefiting from third phase of the program is Brandy Rosecrance.
She first started the program in November after 14 years of addiction to opiates.
"I was tired of being jail for one thing," Rosecrance said. "Really, just God, honestly I felt this was the right thing to do."
"We deserve a quality of life maybe we always hadn't had that but being restored and reclaimed we are able to have better things in life. We want happy colors, we want them to be able to wake up in a clean atmosphere, refreshing, knowing that while they are on this journey, it's almost a spiritual retreat," Frierson said.
Frierson added that there is a need for more resources to help the indigent community. She suggests for all the groups that work to help the homeless population with recovery to join forces in a meeting so communities are aware of what is available.
To learn more about Mending Hearts, click on this link.
