CFR provides outpatient behavioral health services as well as residential treatment and outpatient treatment programs for substance use or mental illness. The organization has been serving Fort Dodge for more than 50 years, but this is the first time it has opened a women’s recovery house, according to CFR Executive Director Michelle De La Riva.

The house, located on South 17th Street, had been used as the men’s recovery house for the past two decades, De La Riva said. When the men’s program moved to its new location at the old priests’ home next to Sacred Heart Catholic Church, CFR got to work renovating the house to give it new life.

On May 11, CFR hosted a ribbon cutting and open house with the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance.

“We are certainly blessed to have a community that cares about us,” De La Riva said, welcoming the guests to the open house.

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert
The Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance hosted a ribbon cutting at Community and Family Resource’s new women’s recovery house on May 11, 2023.

The house serves as a transitional housing arrangement for graduates of CFR’s in-patient treatment program. Up to eight women can live in the house at a time. On average, residents will stay at the recovery house for about six months, but can stay up to a year, De La Riva said.

Transitional housing programs are important for those going through recovery for addiction, De La Riva said. Residents in the program are given extra support and guidance to help them continue in their recovery while learning how to find employment, budget money, pay bills and manage their recovery. Some women will receive help with family reunification and other skills needed to live on their own.

“We’ve found that people who go through residential and then the halfway house-type programs like this recovery house, the likelihood of them staying sober is much higher,” De La Riva said.

Amy Potts, who is the house manager for the women’s recovery house, knows all too well the challenges of recovering from substance addiction. She shared that she began using drugs and alcohol recreationally as a teenager and that it quickly grew into addiction.

Potts said that when she became an adult, she did everything she could to make it look like she had control over her life — holding down a full-time job, paying bills — because she felt if she looked like she had it all together, it meant she wasn’t truly a drug addict or an alcoholic.

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert
The Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance hosted an open house at Community and Family Resource’s new women’s recovery house on May 11, 2023.

“Eventually, my addiction caught up with me, and it had all the control,” she said. “I became a daily meth user and every day I was consumed with getting high.”

In 2006, at age 24, Potts was sent to inpatient treatment at CFR. Though she was initially angry that she had been committed — because she wanted to seek help on her own terms — that was the turning point she needed.

“The staff played a major role in helping me with my addiction,” she said. “They were understanding, patient and had compassion for helping people struggling with addictions.”

It was during her time at CFR that Potts finally recognized her addictions.

When Potts finished her in-patient treatment program, there were no women’s recovery or sober houses in the area, but CFR had helped her mend her relationships with her family and she was able to move in with family members who were safe and supportive of her recovery journey.

Eventually, Potts went back to school and started working for CFR in 2012.

“I am truly grateful to be working for the agency that helped me with my addiction,” she said. “Having a recovery house for women means a lot to me, both personally and professionally. Being in recovery myself, it gives me hope for fellow women in recovery to have the support they need in order to be successful in their recovery.”

Professionally, she said, she’s grateful that CFR is able to better serve its female clients with a safe home.

“Having a recovery environment for the women is an essential piece in their treatment,” she said. “I’m truly blessed to be a part of their journey and have been given the opportunity to manage the women’s recovery house.”

Potts was the “perfect fit” for this role, De La Riva said. In overseeing the renovation of the house, Potts helped design and decorate and even got crafty and painted several decor signs with inspirational and motivational messages.

“It’s always heartwarming when you see somebody come full circle,” De La Riva said. “Amy’s story is not different from many of our staff, but her heart and soul is in recovery and when you see the house, you feel it.”

CFR opened the new men’s recovery house at the former priests’ home for Sacred Heart Church on Second Avenue South the year before.

“Recovery is so important,” De La Riva said during an open house for the men’s recovery house in June 2022. “We know that one in 10 individuals are diagnosed with substance use disorder every single year, so it’s a very common condition. Having more opportunities is important and we’re glad to have Fort Dodge as our community just because we feel so welcomed.”