Michigan's Largest Arab American Nonprofit Opens $25 Million Recovery Center in Dearborn

DEARBORN, Mich. — ACCESS, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, is opening the doors of a new $25 million recovery center in Dearborn designed to bring around-the-clock addiction and mental health treatment to Southeast Michigan, according to reporting this week from the Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, and MLive. The roughly 51,000-to-53,000-square-foot, three-story facility sits at 2651 Saulino Court and represents the largest capital project ACCESS has undertaken in its more-than-50-year history serving the region's Arab American community. The organization has spent years fundraising for the project, framing it as a response to an opioid crisis that has nearly doubled fatal overdoses in Michigan over the past decade. The center is built around what ACCESS calls a "no wrong door" model: patients can walk in during any kind of crisis — substance use, mental health, or both — and be routed to the right level of care rather than turned away or shuttled between disconnected providers. Services will include a crisis stabilization unit for people in acute psychiatric or substance-use emergencies, medically supervised withdrawal management (detox), short-term clinically managed residential care lasting up to 28 days, and a full range of outpatient options including medication-assisted treatment, individual and group therapy, psychiatric care, and peer recovery coaching. Wraparound support — help with housing, legal aid, education, and employment — is built into the model, reflecting ACCESS's broader social-services approach rather than a narrow medical one. While the center is explicitly designed to be linguistically and culturally responsive to Arab American and Muslim patients — addressing the stigma around addiction and mental illness that can keep people in the community from seeking help — organizers have emphasized it will serve residents across Southeast Michigan regardless of background. The opening comes at a moment of leadership transition for the organization. ACCESS CEO Maha Freij, who has overseen the recovery center's development, is handing the role to Lina Hourani-Harajli, currently the organization's chief operating officer, effective October 1. Hourani-Harajli was announced as incoming president and CEO earlier this year, with ACCESS noting it has grown to roughly $109 million in assets, making it one of the largest Arab American human-services agencies in the country. For Dearborn, home to one of the largest and most concentrated Arab American populations in the United States, the recovery center adds a major new piece of health infrastructure at a time when the city has also been in the news this fall for a schools funding vote and other civic milestones. Unlike a typical hospital-based program, the ACCESS model draws on decades of community trust the organization has built through its network of social, educational, and health programs — betting that a familiar, culturally attuned entry point will get more people into treatment who might otherwise avoid it. The center's staged opening will roll out core services first, with the short-term residential unit becoming operational in phases, according to ACCESS. Construction reporting this week described the project as in its final phase after a multiyear fundraising and building campaign backed by donors across the region.