A faith-based substance abuse recovery center will have to make various improvements after an inspection by the county environmental health office resulted in a list of several areas of concern.
After receiving a complaint about Promise Land Ministries in June, Gilmer County Environmental Health Manager Andrea Mathis visited the facilities on Weeks Road along with personnel from the county planning and zoning office, which handles building inspections.
The list of onsite observations and concerns includes nonworking, inadequate or absent smoke detectors, significant plumbing leaks, mold growth in shower facilities and concerns about fire protection in the main building, a church where the residents also sleep at night.
Mathis gave an update on the proceedings to members of the Gilmer County Board of Health during the board’s quarterly meeting last week. Promise Land is also under review by the state fire marshal’s office due to fire safety concerns, she noted.
“The state fire marshal’s office has conducted a fire safety inspection, and planning and zoning is currently under some compliance proceedings,” said Mathis. “We’re kind of in limbo waiting to find out where the fire marshal is in the compliance part of things. Once they determine whether or not the facility can continue operating, we can make a determination on what our (next) move will be.”
Promise Land provides a Christ-centered recovery program for men with alcohol and/or drug addiction. The program is often court-mandated.
Bill Manning, Promise Land director, said the nonprofit is funded mainly by its residents providing labor to Faith, Hope and Charity Recycle Store, as well as day labor for builders and contractors.
“For the first five months, they serve the community, which is a two-fold situation,” he said. “It’s how I pay the bills, and the second part is based on our faith. We believe service to others is one of the greatest weapons against addiction. After five months, they can get a full time job and save some money. Most of them are without a vehicle, or they’ve lost everything.”
Mathis said several of the areas of concern stem from some of the facilities having deteriorated to where something needs to be done.
“I do believe if they had the means to do better, they would. Essentially we have to be a little objective and look out for the welfare of the men who are living there,” she added.
Manning said Promise Land is in the process of trying to make some improvements including replacing two aging trailers — one that’s used for a kitchen and another for a locker room. Building an addition to the church is what they eventually want to do, he said.
Another repair that’s in the process of being done involves putting in a new fire alarm control panel that has hard-wired smoke detectors, Manning noted. Promise Land may also have to obtain a new certificate of occupancy (CO), per the fire marshal’s office, he added.
“The original founder and his wife are both deceased. I don’t know exactly how everything came about, but I do know they received a CO from Gilmer County in 2007. Evidently, that CO should have been issued by the state,” Manning said. “We are in the process of getting this fixed.”
Charlie Paris, the public health board’s chairman and also chairman of the Gilmer Board of Commissioners, said there are some compliance issues at Promise Land that the planning and zoning department needs to address, but the county is also waiting on the fire marshal’s findings.
“They’re sort of taking the lead in this, or at least I hope they will,” Paris said. “One of our concerns is there’s a number of people there with nowhere to go. We can’t just walk in and shut the place down unless we’ve got somewhere to send these people. We’re hoping very much that the fire marshal will step up, and the state will provide some assistance in this area.”
Manning said architectural plans have been drawn up for the planned addition to the church.
“The locker room trailer and the kitchen trailer will be going away very soon. I’ve also wanted to build a dorm, but without going into some pretty serious debt while I’m trying to get us out of debt,” he added.
A date hasn’t been set for a follow-up inspection, but, with winter coming, there’s concern about what the Promise Land residents’ safety is going to be like then, Mathis noted.
She said a plan is being put together in case of a shut down. Residents who are there as part of court proceedings have probation officers who could probably arrange for other housing, but some residents are homeless and have no other place to go, Mathis noted.
“I’ve notified all the agencies involved in (this, including) the department of community health along with some other local agencies that might get involved with some of the adult protective service type scenarios. (We hope to) have a plan in the next few months,” she added.
Manning said the county and the environmental health office have always been good to Promise Land, but funding for making big improvements to the facilities, on which there’s still a mortgage, is limited. The ministry receives no federal or state support and relies on donations to continue. Around 30 men are typically enrolled in the program at any one time.
“We’re a nonprofit with limited staff, and we’re all volunteers. When I first started (here), I wanted to get everything under one roof. With the expense and the timing, it wasn’t going to work. I feel like, at this point, we’ve got to move forward even if we have to do it in chunks,” Manning said.