The Amy Winehouse Foundation is to open a home for female addicts on the fifth anniversary of Amy Winehouse’s death.
The recovery house will be named after the six-time Grammy award winner - Amy’s Place - and will help women who have suffered with alcohol or drug addiction to reintegrate into society after quitting.
Winehouse made two critically acclaimed albums, Frank and Back to Back, but struggled to cope under the attention of the media and its interest in her private life and subsequent battle with drink and drugs.
She died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27.
The Amy Winehouse Foundation, which was set up after she died has partnered with a housing provider to open the new home for women.
Based in east London, Amy’s Place will be made up of 12 self-contained apartments and will house up to 16 women.
Dominic Ruffy, special project director at the Amy Winehouse Foundation, told the Guardian that the lack of women-centred services for addiction treatment in the UK inspired the move.
He said: “There are about six women-only rehabs, and beyond that, there’s an even greater paucity of women-specific recovery housing beds.
“There is only one other women-only recovery house in London and it’s only a four-bed with a six-month waiting list.”
Mr Ruffy, who has been in recovery himself, said the recovery house would provide a safe place for people to come out of treatment with support workers to help guide them.
He said: “Picture a person who is 14 years-old, has come from a broken home, hasn’t engaged at school, ends on a path of addiction and winds up at 25-26 years old going to rehab, learning how to get clean, and then leaving rehab and being told to get on with it. It can be as simple as not knowing how to go about getting your benefits or engaging in college.
“Our experience shows if you give people an extended period of time post-traditional rehabilitation treatment, you will improve the percentage of people who stay clean [in the] long term.
“We have a saying in recovery that the drink and drugs aren’t our problem, it’s living life clean and sober.”
Amy’s Place has been set up with the help of Centra Care and Support, part of the not-for-profit organisation Circle Housing.
