Daybreak Youth Services, a Spokane-based nonprofit that provides drug- and alcohol-abuse counseling to teens, has bought about three acres of land in Vancouver, Wash., and envisions building a new, $10 million inpatient treatment center there.


Tim Smith, Daybreaks executive director, says the organization has completed a feasibility study on development of a 38,000-square-foot, 48-bed facility in Vancouver and has applied for a zone change that would allow such a development on its recently acquired site.


Daybreak has offered counseling services in Vancouver for about five years, and currently operates a smaller, 16-bed inpatient facility there, says Smith. It opened that facility at the request of Clark County, where Vancouver is located, he says.


The goal would be to serve the same numbers in Vancouver as we do in Spokane, Smith says.


In Spokane, Daybreak operates a 40-bed inpatient-treatment center at 628 S. Cowley, as well as two outpatient facilities, one just east of downtown at 960 E. Third, and one in Spokane Valley at 11707 E. Sprague.


Daybreak plans to set up a fund-raising office in Vancouver, and wont start building its facility until needed funds have been raised, Smith says. Consequently, the organization hasnt established a schedule for construction work yet, he says.


Through its three Spokane facilities, Daybreak serves about 1,000 teens a year, Smith says.


Most of the organizations patients are from the Spokane area, but it also draws teens from elsewhere in Eastern Washington and from North Idaho.


The organization, which started here in 1978, recently changed its name to Daybreak Youth Services from Daybreak of Spokane to reflect its regional presence.


It employs a total of 100 workers, 70 in Spokane and 30 in Vancouver, Smith says.


Daybreak had about $4 million in revenues last year.


Social-service agencies in Washington and Idaho contract with Daybreak for treatment services and account for about 70 percent of its funding.


The balance comes from private health insurers.


David Dowers, of Dowers Commercial Inc., handled the Vancouver land transaction.