(LaPORTE, IN) - La Porte is flexing its muscles in the fight against opioid addiction.

Another outpatient substance abuse clinic in the city is expected to open sometime in mid-March with help from a $500,000 grant from the Healthcare Foundation of La Porte.

The Recovery Center focused on treating opioid addiction with methadone will be operated by Porter-Starke Services, a provider of mental health and substance abuse treatment in Knox, Valparaiso, Portage, Hebron and Gary.

The facility will be in the same building at 1230 W. Indiana 2 as Swanson Center, another specialist in treating mental health and substance abuse issues.

Recovery Center will be the only facility in La Porte County prescribing methadone to ease withdrawal, said Dan Peck, CEO of Swanson Center.

Peck said Porter-Starke Services will also provide counseling but patients requiring more intensive therapy can access those services at Swanson Center.

He said the partnership should help prevent relapses in patients having difficulty traveling regularly outside La Porte County for medication and counseling.

“For individuals who are trying to reintegrate into the workforce and maintain a job or if they’re attending school to have to travel a half hour or 45 minutes becomes quite a barrier,” he said.

“This is going to be very convenient for those individuals,” he said.

Porter-Starke has received $500,000 annually the past three-years from the Healthcare Foundation of La Porte to provide inpatient treatment for La Porte County residents.

Peck said about $100,000 of this year’s grant was used start the new clinic in La Porte.

“Without the generous grant, the operational start-up and necessary renovations could not have happened,” said Matthew Burden, President/CEO of Porter-Starke Services.

Frontline Foundations, a faith-based outpatient treatment provider, is approaching its fifth year in LaPorte at 714 Lincolnway.