For years, Aurora Mental Health Center has been fighting a battle of supply and demand. While services offered through the center’s detox facility on Potomac Street for people battling drug and alcohol addiction are in demand, CEO Kelly Phillips-Henry said the center has struggled to find space for needed growth.

The need for substance abuse treatment services has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, with the CEO referring to a “national crisis of substance use and abuse.”

In October, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that the pandemic was driving rates of drug and alcohol use across the country. The administration referenced a survey given in late 2020 which indicated that an estimated 25.9 million Americans who drank alcohol in the past year and 10.9 million people who had taken other drugs during that time were using those substances more than they did before the pandemic.

Around 5% of all adults were said to have seriously considered suicide in the same timeframe, and 0.5% attempted suicide. Adults with mental illnesses and kids ages 12 to 17 who had a past-year major depressive episode were more likely than others to report that the pandemic negatively affected their mental health “quite a bit or a lot.”

But Phillips-Henry said the demand for services has not guaranteed them space for another detox facility. On the contrary, she said zoning challenges and opposition from neighbors have regularly blocked them from finding other sites.

“Those became huge obstacles,” she said. “Lo and behold, we weren’t able to secure a second location.”

Then, a few years ago, the center got word that Jefferson Hills, another mental health care provider and the owner of the Potomac property as of 2020, was looking to sell. Given the difficulties of locking down more space for their detox program, Phillips-Henry said Aurora Mental Health Center jumped at the chance to buy the land.