Mike Tyson, is the director of recovery support services with Southern Illinois Resource and Advocacy Center or SIRAC. He's showing me the agency's newest facility in Vienna, "We're going to have AA meetings, NA meetings inhere, as well as strategy meetings. And then we have this amazing parking lot out here where we can do some outreach events."
He says the center will work with clients to navigate social service needs in and around Johnson County, "Until people have safe, stable housing, safe, stable food, all those basic things, man, we really can't do anything. If anything that we do is building a house on shifting sands, you know, so we can deliver a lot of high quality mental health services. We could come up with all these cool programs, but if people don't know where they're going to eat or sleep, it's all wasted money."
Tyson points to the experiences SIRAC's peer professionals who have experienced and overcome many of the problems facing the people they serve. Clients can be referred to to the center or come in on their own.
For Tyson and SIGH-RAC, it's part of their effort to show that recovery is possible. Trying to make connections and provide safe places for each interaction, "When you deal with a lot of food insecurity, when you're dealing with housing instability, mental health challenges, and you can't get access to proper care, it's really difficult to go into an office and try to communicate with a social worker."
Tyson sees this new center as an outpost of hope, "We have our peer staff that are here. We're going to be working with rural health. We're also going to be working with other local providers like Arrowleaf on how we can start building a community for people in recovery. And we want this resource center to kind of be that hub."
SIRAC Website: https://www.siresources.org/
SIRAC Facebook page
