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New Desires – Recovery Housing

You hear a lot about recovery houses in Frankford but I had never visited one so I asked Jeanna Goodwin, president of New Desires Inc., if I could stop by and talk to her.  Tuesday morning we sat down in the twelve foot high ceilinged front room of New Desires on Leiper Street and I asked some questions.

New Desires was founded by Jeanna’s father, the late Fred Courduff, about 12 years ago.  He didn’t set out to start a recovery house.  It evolved from his desire to help others find the path to recovery that he, himself, was on.  New Desires now has two houses, both on Leiper Street, serving about 30 residents.

What does New Desires do?  They provide a place and structure for people who are trying to get their lives back together and move away from addiction.  They come voluntarily and stay as long as necessary. They are not committed by the judicial system or anything like that.

New Desires, Inc.’s Residential Recovery Houses are community based, peer-group oriented, residential facilities that provides food, shelter, and recovery services in a supportive, non-drinking, drug-free environment for alcoholics and other drug addicts. Services provided by our recovery house include individual and group recovery planning, alcohol and other drug recovery education, group support, recreational activities, and information about and assistance in obtaining health, vocational, and other community services.

Some residents stay on more or less permanently as they might in one of the other boarding houses you find here and there in Frankford.  Of course they are free to leave at any time and some do.  A supervisor is always on duty to ensure that the program is being followed and the rules are enforced.

Jeanna co-founded the Frankford Recovery House coalition a few years ago to attempt to unite the legitimate recovery houses in the face of unfavorable publicity.  There are five organizations within the coalition at present.  Jeanna is well aware of the problem caused by recovery houses that merely take a check and provide no services to their residents.

new-desires-recovery-team

Jeanna - President, Steve - Housing Supervisor and John also on staff

This is not an endorsement of New Desires but rather an attempt to understand what we are talking about in regard to recovery houses.

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Frankford CDC Board Meeting

The Frankford CDC held a public board of directors meeting Tuesday night at Frankford High School.  Visitors attending the meeting were met at the door by the members of the Frankford High Junior ROTC and directed to the 2nd floor library.

The CDC is emerging from a period of rebuilding from financial setbacks that threatened its existence.  At this point the financial issues are being dealt with and the board is looking toward a brighter future.

cdc-board-and-staff

You can find much more information on their website than I can pass on here.  I met with Tracy O’Drain Monday morning to talk about the CDC and where it stands today.  We chatted for about 90 minutes on the second floor of that building at 4900 Griscom Street.  She has a great view up there.  Tracy has her hands in a lot of different pots but is primarily responsible for business development.  You can expect to here more news from the CDC on a more regular basis.

New to add to your calendar is the date for the Frankford Festival which will be June 20th.  The location is now moving back to Overington Park.  More news will be forthcoming but think talent contest.

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Frankford’s Heroes of the Web: Wikipedia’s BillFlis

Wikipedia LogoWe at the Gazette are not alone in bringing Frankford’s affairs to the light of the internet.  Long before we started over at blogspot, Frankford has had a faithful following over at Wikipedia.  And for as long as I’ve been doing stuff on this site, I have had to look things up, whether they be Frankford’s history or politicians or places, or events.  And my first stop has always been Wikipedia.  And among all those entries there has been one consistant thread: someone with the username of BillFlis.

BillFlis has started the articles on Friend’s Hospital, the Frankford Arsenal, John Ruan House, the Frankford Creek, Frankford Friend’s School, and Greenwood Cemetery.  He has also contributed to Frankford’s own entry, Whitehall Borough, Lidia Darragh, St Joachim’s Church, St Mark’s Episcopal Church, Cedar Hill Cemetery, and now I’m getting tired of listing them all.

I don’t know anything about this guy(if he is a guy), my google searches don’t turn up much, I don’t even know if he lives in Frankford.  I get the impression he doesn’t, just because he contributes heavily to other Philadelphia neighborhoods and historical figures in general.  And his most impressive contributions seem to be about Billy Penn and his family.  But he is certainly a juggernaut over there and his breadth of knowledge and tenacity make him a valued asset to Frankord on the internet.

So we solute you dude.  We know how truly daunting it is sorting out the facts of this neighborhood.

P.S.  We couldn’t help to notice you could use a few fair use pics in those entries of yours.  And we have tons, let us know if you’d like to use our pics. I can be reached through jim@frankfordgazette.com

[link] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BillFlis

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Another Week, Another Issue the Gazette is Late On

This is going to be a running joke, I can feel it.  Just a week after I whine about us being the last to find out about the conversion of the Frankford Day Nursery into another Recovery House, we already have another one in the pipeline.  Apparently there’s some halfway house action happening at the corner of Griscom and Church.  And it’s pretty apparent from the comments that follow the post that there are other residents that know more about it than we do.  We at the Gazette are not really journalists, and we cannot do this alone.

If you know of shenanigans going on in Frankford, why don’t you just mosy on over to our message board and post it, it’s right here.  It’s pretty anonymous, post gossip if you like.  And if you don’t know anything about the bad stuff, do something even better and post some good stuff.  I have never met a resident of Frankford that didn’t find something interesting, or from whom I was not able to learn more about it’s past.

I did this last week and got an awesome response.  I learned about Overington Manor and Leandros Pizza.  Go over and tell me something new this week.

[link] http://www.frankford.yuku.com/