Wine Country Times

The Women's Recovery Services (WRS) residential treatment is coping as best as it can to fires in Santa Rosa where some 8,200 people have been evacuated so far, according to media reports, but COVID-19 is adding an unexpected layer of challenges.

“We already had one of our transitional homes evacuated,” Linda Carlson, executive director of WRS, told Wine Country Times. “The women and children came to our main campus off East Street in Santa Rosa where we can house 20 women and 12 children. We had space for them to come here.

“We have developed a rather sophisticated evacuation plan for if and when we have to evacuate any of our locations,” Carlson told Wine Country Times.

Those plans include back up housing in three locations that are currently closed due to the coronavirus. 

“They're not staffed,” said Carlson in an interview. “Their congregation isn't coming in. So, if we had to evacuate there, we would essentially be in a safe location but we would need to provide everything for ourselves.” 

WRS is made up of four locations where women with addiction issues reside while receiving substance abuse treatment.

“We are an essential service,” Carlson said. “We serve very low-income women with minor children. We have stayed open. We called upon the public health department and other residential treatment programs in Sonoma County to help guide us on what we needed to do.”

Under normal circumstances, about 78% of the women who complete the four-month program remain clean and sober, but the coronavirus and now the fires have added unexpected pressures to WRS clients, many of whom have already lead difficulty lives.

The California Department of Public Health reported 823,729 coronavirus cases and 16,120 fatalities as of Oct. 5.

“We are quarantining women for five days where they can't see their kids,” said Carlson. “They come to us because there's a good chance they will get their kids back or at least see their child in a timely manner, but Child Protective Services (CPS) has just been completely dismantled and everything has moved to where CPS workers aren't coming out. It's really challenging for our women to be on hold. Everybody's gotten used to it but it's hard.” 

Carlson maintains a long go-to list of women drivers as part of a broader fire evacuation plan.

“At our main facility, everybody has a green go-to bag for themselves and for their kids,” she said. “We had to spend a lot of time with the women, making sure they're packed and that they are bringing the right things in case of an emergency.”

Carlson added that for now, WRS has halted adding any new volunteers due to the coronavirus but will accept cash contributions as well as donations of diapers, masks, gloves, sanitizing wipes and bottles of water.

“COVID has forced us to move to a virtual platform, which we weren't prepared for at all,” she said. “We weren't set up for that but we are now. It was also really hard for our newly sober women in aftercare program to stay clean because meetings were moved to a virtual platform and they lost connection with the other women. We’ve seen a higher rate of relapse, particularly in our transitional houses, due to COVID.”