Richmond-Times Dispatch
RICHMOND — Shamar Muhammadali celebrated his first birthday at Rubicon Inc. He learned to walk while living at the drug treatment center in Richmond’s Highland Park neighborhood.
Now 15 months old, Shamar is about to leave the center with his mother, Sharita Peebles, who entered Rubicon in late June for treatment of her addiction to crack cocaine.
“If it weren’t for Rubicon, I’d be homeless and still strung out on drugs,” she said while Shamar ate lunch recently at the program’s Children’s Activity Center.
“They welcomed me right in, they welcomed my son right in. Basically, they saved my life.” Now, after 42 years of saving lives, Rubicon is trying to save its own.
The nonprofit organization is struggling to avoid impending default on its mortgages, make up unpaid federal and state withholding taxes, meet payroll every other week, and fill its half-empty programs.
Full story: Finances threatens Va. center for addicts