PIKEVILLE — The goal of opening a women's substance abuse treatment center in an abandoned Pike County school just received a push from the Pike County Fiscal Court.

During a Nov. 18 meeting, the Pike County Fiscal Court unanimously voted to convey the former Lookout Elementary School property to the Pike County Board of Education.

Pike County Board of Education Attorney Neal Smith said the building was constructed in the 1970s, when Kentucky school boards were legally restricted from issuingbonds for construction.

When the Pike County Board of Education sought to build Lookout Elementary, it was required to convey the property to the Pike County Fiscal Court, which leased the building to the school board (for the amount of bond payments) until the bond was paid in 1999, Smith said. Officials didn’t notice that the conveyance was needed in 1999. A title search recently revealed the problem.

Calling it a technicality, officials said the conveyance will help the WestCare Foundation obtain additional funding to renovate the building into a substance abuse treatment facility for women.

The WestCare Foundation, which operates a male treatment facility in Ashcamp, submitted a bid for building in 2006, announcing that the school would become home to a 90-day, 45- bed licensed residential treatment center for women.

On July 2, WestCare officials presented a $92,000 check to the Board of Education— the final payment toward purchase of the abandoned school property.

The fiscal court has approved a total of $217,000 in coal severance funds for the new treatment facility. But coal severance tax money can’t be used to fund salaries of substance abuse counselors and WestCare still needs funds to complete an estimated $1.2 million in renovations.

WestCare's Regional Vice President, Jenifer Nolan, said earlier this year that the organization should more easily obtain funding for the renovation after it gains a "clear title" to the property. Having all the paperwork in place has worked.

Nolan said WestCare recently received a $675,000 Federal Home Loan Bank Grant, which she hopes will give WestCare some leverage in seeking additional funding. WestCare has a Kentucky Housing grant pending, and the organization is also seeking funds from a couple of small foundations that require funding matches from private money.

WestCare will begin construction—possibly replacing a roof and completing other basic construction needs—in as soon as 30 or 45 days, Nolan said. Before it can open, the building must be brought up to code as a licensed residential treatment facility. Construction should last about a year, Nolan said.

"Summit Engineering has been a fantastic community partner," Nolan said. “We’re just glad that they’re so interested in this project. They’ve been helping us for several months.”

Summit engineers have been designing the interior of the facility, which will be modeled after other women treatment facilities operated by WestCare throughout the United States.

WestCare operates facilities for women in other states, but the Lookout location will be the first such center in eastern Kentucky. Female clients of WestCare can bring their children to the facility, where daycare services and parenting classes will be provided for mothers who are being treated.

Women treated in residential treatment centers with their children at their side tend to have a better rate of completion and a better rate of recovery than women who are treated for substance abuse problems without their children at hand, Nolan said.