ROME’s New Recovery Center
Client: Recovery Options Made Easy (ROME)
Project: Kirstin M. Vincent Respite and Recovery Center
Amount Raised: $2,000,000
Sources: Erie County Legislature, Erie County Department of Mental Health, DASNY, Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation, Margaret L Wendt Foundation, John R. Oishei Foundation, Patrick Lee Foundation
After a global pandemic and the racially-motivated 2022 mass shooting on Jefferson Avenue only blocks away from the historic and predominantly Black, Fruit Belt neighborhood on the East Side of Buffalo, NY, a first of its kind behavioral health center was finally transformed from a wild idea, to a reality.
The Kirsten Vincent Respite and Recovery Center opened in April 2024 after years of advocating and educating funders and the community on the need for an innovative approach to providing mental health services.
Over the course of several years, Upper Edge worked tirelessly to help ROME find and secure multiple funding streams from public and private sources and weave them together to raise the millions of dollars in capital funds to open this much-needed facility.
Finally, in 2023, the Kirsten Vincent Respite and Recovery Center was licensed through the NYS Office of Mental Health and opened its doors thanks to funding from the Erie County Department of Mental Health and Erie County Legislature, along with countless private foundations.
Today, the Center is a peer-led, one-stop continuum of crisis support led by ROME in collaboration with WNY Independent Living, Mental Health Peer Connection and Spectrum Health and Human Services.
Helping give the community access to these critical services is why UEC works so hard for its clients.