2002: A group of women from First Baptist Church Nashville, calling themselves the Wild Praying Women, prayed for direction on how to use a vacant building owned by the church on Eighth Avenue South. The Wild Praying Women completed a comprehensive needs assessment and found that the biggest need was transitional housing and services for women coming from incarceration.
2004: The Next Door begins as the Downtown Ministry Center, a Residential Transitional Program for women recently released from incarceration. After a few years of working with women coming out of incarceration, The Next Door recognized that an affordable, supportive living environment was paramount to a woman’s success in all areas of her life.
2007: The Next Door purchases a 21-unit apartment complex and created the Freedom Recovery Community, an affordable housing complex for women in recovery and their children. Women sign a one-year lease, pay affordable rent, receive case management, and establish a positive rental history.
2010: The Next Door enters into a partnership with the Tennessee Department of Correction to provide holistic evidence-based services for women completing the final 2 years or less of their prison sentence. Services include workforce development, group and individual therapy, case management, computer classes, one-on-one mentoring, spiritual awareness, and family enrichment.
2012: After seeing how many women in the criminal justice system struggled with substance use disorders, The Next Door began providing addiction treatment.
2014: The Next Door built a new facility in Nashville to serve more women through addiction treatment services.
Today, The Next Door is the only organization that provides a full continuum of gender-specific treatment for women in a faith-based environment. The ministry has 82 beds for inpatient treatment and the capacity for 60 women to participate in outpatient programs. Freedom Recovery Community continues to house 21 women and their families, and the re-entry program in Chattanooga has 42 beds for women who are currently incarcerated. To learn more about TND, please visit: www.thenextdoor.org. To become a volunteer, please contact: volunteer@thenextdoor.org.
For questions about treatment services admissions, please contact: april.barnes@thenextdoor.org
To arrange a tour of our facility, please contact: kate.mckinnie@thenextdoor.org
