New Directions Northwest has bought the former Blue Mountain Community College Baker City campus building and plans to open a training center for addiction treatment counselors in the structure at 14th and Baker streets.

Blue Mountain, meanwhile, has moved its local campus to the business complex at 3370 10th St., which also houses the DMV office.

The former campus, with nearly 6,000 square feet along with modular classrooms totaling almost 1,300 square feet, is in good shape, said Shari Selander, CEO at New Directions, which provides mental health and addiction counseling. The main building was constructed in 1960.

“We are going to continue to use it for training and education,” Selander said. “Right now we are exploring several different opportunities. What we have seen as a shortfall in Eastern Oregon is we continue to have a workforce crisis throughout, not just Baker County, but the entire state of Oregon. And in fact throughout the nation. So we have decided we really need to gear up and grow our own, provide opportunities for individuals that live in Eastern Oregon, particularly in Baker County.”

Claudia Wilcox, who will be overseeing the training center, said New Directions will offer two certifications for peer mentoring and drug/alcohol counseling careers.

New Directions already offers such training, but with the new building the program can expand to host as many as 40 students from around the region.

“We have support from our other county community mental health programs as well,” Selander said. “It can be very difficult to leave your family, it can become a career that you could have done but it doesn’t allow the time to be away from home.”

“People are all doing something a little different to help increase their workforce, like removing barriers, and we’re moving in that direction,” Wilcox said.

Andi Walsh, grants and public relations manager for New Directions, said students now have to travel as far as Portland for similar training.

New Directions officials said they are looking into adding other training programs at the new center.

“As far as word of mouth goes, it’s the best advertising that we can have is from people who are actually attending the training,” Wilcox said.

“We have recognized for years that if we had the opportunity to have a training center it would open up this career in a much larger way,” Selander said.

New Directions hasn’t settled on when the new training center will open.

Career paths and training programs in mental health and addiction work can be explored through newdirectionsnw.org.

Registration is open through Eventbrite at https://tinyurl.com/22xfzthm.