Addiction treatment center to move into old eastside Family Video
INDIANAPOLIS (Mirror Indy) — The old Family Video building in the eastside Emerson Heights neighborhood will get a new occupant this month.
A Better Way Outreach, a locally owned addiction treatment center, will move into the vacant 6,000-square-foot building at the corner of East 10th Street and North Emerson Avenue. The center will begin taking patients on Jan. 13.
The organization’s focus is treating drug addiction through medical treatment and counseling, but primary and family care services also are available.
Arlean Richardson, a co-owner and director of operations, said there will be five medical staff at the new location.
“We want to be there for people,” she said.
A Better Way Outreach opened in 2018 and will keep its original location at 2325 E. New York St.
Aside from treatment, the organization helps clients with things such as clothes, hygiene supplies and bus passes.
Many clients come to the center from sober living houses, Richardson said, and they may be homeless.
“They come with whatever they have,” she said, “which isn’t much.”
The center also is important, Richardson said, because of its location. She hopes adding another primary care option in the area gives clients an alternative to going to the emergency room at nearby Community Hospital East for health problems that aren’t actually emergencies.
And even for those who don’t use the clinic, getting a new tenant in the building means there won’t be an empty building at the busy intersection.
A Better Way Outreach will become the second addiction treatment center to occupy the former Family Video building.
Tennessee-based Wellpath operated a clinic there — but only for a short time. The business has faced dozens of patient lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in November.
The building is best remembered as one of the last Family Video holdouts.
The store was a source of movie nostalgia well beyond the golden era of rentals.
But the location shut down during the pandemic, and Family Video’s parent company closed all remaining locations in 2021.
This story was originally published by Mirror Indy on Jan. 8, 2025.