Your Haven, an addiction recovery community organization in Buchanan, Georgia, sits on a quiet side street—a small, beige building against a stand of Loblolly pines. But its unassuming façade belies its impact here as a place of deep connections, second chances and new beginnings.
Opened in 2020 in response to the opioid crisis in rural Haralson County, Your Haven’s services include community outreach, peer-led recovery groups and 12-step addiction programs. Staffed by people who have taken the journey from addiction to recovery, the organization brings empathy and understanding to its work with community members seeking help.
“It's important being able to meet somebody where they are,” said Christopher Martin, director of Your Haven. “If you've never been where they're at or anywhere close to where they're at, it's impossible to meet them where they are.”
The Your Haven addiction recovery community organization represents one of 18 community coalitions in Georgia receiving support from the Georgia Opioid Abatement Trust and the CDC Foundation.
Christopher Martin, director of the Your Haven addiction recovery community organization in Buchanan, Georgia.
Your Haven provides personal support to those seeking help in their recovery from addiction through a welcoming and friendly atmosphere.
The Goal
Your Haven represents one of 18 rural community coalitions in Georgia receiving support from the Georgia Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust and the CDC Foundation to bolster and expand their overdose prevention work. Spanning 21 rural counties with some of the highest rates of opioid addiction in the state, the grantees will build coalitions focused on connecting public health and public safety resources to create a holistic overdose prevention response, extending the CDC Foundation’s existing Overdose Response Strategy model into priority counties across Georgia.
With a population of just over 32,000 residents according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Haralson County’s overdose fatality figures are three times the national average—a consequence, Martin says, of high unemployment and limited resources like counseling, housing and employment assistance to help break the cycle of substance use disorder.
Impact
Few see the impact of these overdoses more intimately than Your Haven board member and Haralson County coroner Patty Hutcheson. Hutcheson reported 24 suspected drug overdose deaths from January to November 2025—a nearly fourfold increase from all of 2024. As a small community with little support for those battling substance misuse, Hutcheson says, Your Haven knows that the road to recovery can begin with a gas card for fuel, food items from a small on-site pantry or help finding a place to stay for a night in a crisis.
“I think the issue is that some people don't know what we're doing here and what's happening here,” Hutcheson said. “But hopefully we'll be able to get that word out a little more because of this grant—be able to help more people and maybe relieve some of the stigma associated with recovery.”
The impacts of the opioid crisis are not found only in overdose statistics. Across Haralson County, approximately 85 percent of all children in foster care have cases that involve substance misuse, and 97 percent of the county jail inmates have a substance use disorder. To address the issue, Your Haven will work closely with the department of public health in Haralson County to implement programs in local schools focused on substance use prevention and healthy decision-making. To help save lives, Your Haven is creating reversal kits comprised of the opioid-reversal nasal spray naloxone, Fentanyl test strips, educational materials and other essentials to share with first responders throughout Haralson County.
“We hope to reduce the overdose death rate through prevention and awareness,” Martin said. “And through naloxone saturation—making sure that people have life-saving naloxone to be alive long enough to make the choice to enter into recovery.”
Patty Hutcheson, Haralson County coroner, says that after years of steady or declining overdose fatality numbers, Haralson County has seen nearly a fourfold increase in overdose deaths in 2025.
With a population of just over 32,000, rural Haralson County has three times the national overdose fatality figures, due in part to high rates of unemployment and limited resources like counseling, housing and employment assistance.
Your Haven offers 12-step addiction programs, peer-led recovery groups, community outreach and a willing ear to those seeking addiction recovery.
For law enforcement officers like Sheriff Stacy Williams, partnering with Your Haven provides access to opioid educational materials, counseling services and hands on resources law enforcement departments are not structured to provide, while further strengthening ties with local residents.
“Ever since they've come on board, they've done so much for our community,” said Sheriff Williams. “They got out there in the community, they built bridges, they built rapport with people inside our county and outside our county.”
Community Outreach
Your Haven’s Post Overdose Response Team (PORT) is a key driver of that connection, visiting local neighborhoods after drug overdoses to spread awareness and provide naloxone to prevent further overdoses. Such door-to-door intervention provides community members with the resources they need to save a life from overdose and spreads the word about Your Haven as a first step for those facing substance use disorders.
“Sometimes we don't get an exact location of an overdose, but it's within a hundred yards or so and we can usually find the location,” said Shea Holland, operations manager at Your Haven. “We cover the whole area and distribute naloxone and resources and let everybody in their area know that they're not alone, that there's help.”
Haralson County Sheriff Stacy Williams says Your Haven is a valuable resource for his officers in addressing the opioid epidemic in Haralson County.
Your Haven's Post Overdose Response Team (PORT) goes door-to-door after a local overdose to educate community members on the risk and provide naloxone, a vital tool in saving lives from opioid overdose.
Naloxone, fentanyl test stips and educational materials are among the items in the reversal kits that Your Haven will provide to Haralson County first responders with CDC Foundation support.
In Haralson County and across the country, saving lives from overdose means having the resources needed to help people make the first step towards recovery. Having lived through substance misuse themselves, the staff of Your Haven understand there is another key component as well.
“If you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired, you can come here and talk to somebody,” Martin said. “Everybody's right here waiting to love on somebody.”
This effort is made possible through support from the Georgia Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust.