House of Hope center keeps families intact

SALT LAKE CITY — In one fist, 20-month-old Alexis Benadik clutches an orange plastic tiger. In the other: a blue hippopotamus. Eyes closed, mouth stretched wide in ecstasy, she bangs the table like a rock-star drummer.

Tickity. Tackity. Tick. Tack.

Her mother, holding Alexis comfortably on her lap, taps her foot along with the beat.

"Are you making music?" asks Jennifer Seaman, 31. Alexis nods. Seaman laughs, forgetting — for a moment — that she's in a residential drug rehabilitation facility.

"Alexis is my reward," Seaman said. "I spend all day pulling up all of this stuff, all of the problems, all of the crap from the past. But in the end, I have her."

In the corner of Seaman's room in an otherwise austere group home, there's a bed with frilly pink sheets for Alexis. While Mom's taking classes, Alexis has therapy, too.

A decade ago, House of Hope, the residential rehabilitation facility where Seaman and her daughter are staying, pioneered a family-centered approach to substance abuse treatment. The state-funded nonprofit, over the years, has kept dozens of families together and off the streets. But now, with the legislature talking budget cuts, House of Hope — and other programs like it — may be teetering on the edge of shutting down.

"When you talk about drug rehab, nobody thinks about the kids," said Lisa Heaton, associate director of the House of Hope. "But it's the kids who pay the most when a mom has a drug problem."

Most of the children who come to House of Hope are, like Alexis, on the verge of being taken away from their parents. Many have witnessed domestic violence. Many have been physically and sexually abused — not by their parents, but by random "friends" who agreed to watch them while Mom was busy getting high. Most have learned, through daily observation, the ins and outs of the world of drugs.

"In many ways, they're mature beyond their years," Heaton said. "Mom wasn't there for them, so they've had to fend for themselves."

Nearly 70 percent of addicted women, like Seaman, are single mothers. If it weren't for House of Hope, many of the women in treatment would lose custody of their children. Keeping families together, Heaton argues, saves the state money. Family-based treatment costs taxpayers $15,000 per family per year. Foster care for two children costs $70,000 per year.

"We're their one last chance to put their lives together," Heaton said.