About 250 people a year come to the 21-bed facility for residential treatment. Since May 2006, the program also has provided outpatient services in which people in recovery come for group meetings or counseling a few hours a week rather than boarding at the facility for 28 days.

Located off Airport Road, Santa Fe Recovery Center can only accommodate about 80 outpatients a year because of space limitations, director Yolanda Briscoe said.

She's hopeful that's going to change. The New Mexico Legislature appropriated $300,000 to open a separate building for the outpatient treatment program. Santa Fe County would own it and lease it to Santa Fe Recovery Center inexpensively.

The Extraterritorial Zoning Authority is scheduled to address the master plan at 6 p.m. today in the Santa Fe County Commission Chambers.

"This is a good thing for Santa Fe," Bill Chapman, chairman of the center's seven-member board, said. "This is the only 5-acre treatment center in Santa Fe."

Housing for people who are transitioning from treatment to society is a great need because some are homeless or don't have a safe place to go, Chapman said.

The few places that exist in Santa Fe, through St. Elizabeth Shelter and The Life Link, are often full with waiting lists, he said.

Santa Fe Recovery Center has written grants seeking funding for four housing units for women and four housing units for men. The tenants would find employment, pay rent and attend 12-step meetings. They would stay for three to nine months.

Once called the Recovery of Alcoholics Program, the county's only state-funded, in-patient treatment program is on solid ground after remaking itself in 2005. The previous program failed because of apparent financial mismanagement; RAP's assets were sold to pay $850,000 in debts and provide for start-up costs for Santa Fe Recovery Center.

"Financially, we're very stable," Chapman said. "Two years ago, we had nothing."

Within in the next two weeks, the accredited program will open, at the state's request, an outpatient treatment center in Española. The Española facility will be located at 209 Los Alamos Highway.

"We were also asked by judges in Española to come out there," Briscoe said.

Contact Diana Del Mauro at 986-3066 or dianadm@sfnewmexican.com.