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.
2022: The Next Door sold the Freedom Recovery Connections building after careful consideration about the focus and direction our organization.
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. 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
