Dedicated to healing lives through compassionate, evidence-based care
In late 2016, a clinical team that had spent years working in Bay Area emergency departments and outpatient practices kept arriving at the same conclusion in patient after patient: residential treatment for substance use disorder was effectively out of reach for many of the Oakland families who needed it most. The closest beds were in San Mateo, Marin, or up past Walnut Creek - an hour or more in Bay Area traffic, far from family visits, far from the employers and faith communities and sponsors that often sustain a recovery after discharge. Many patients who needed residential care simply did not make the trip.
HHPL Rehab opened on 12th Street in October 2017, two blocks from Oakland City Hall, with a deliberate design: 29 residential beds, a full outpatient continuum, and a clinical team that lived in the same East Bay communities as the patients. Nine years and 2,600 patients later, the founding question still organizes the work - how do we keep care close enough to the families who need it?
Our mission is to deliver addiction treatment that does not require Oakland families to choose between getting clinical care and staying connected to the lives they are protecting. Prevention and treatment are the two halves of one effort - the same clinical team that runs residential and outpatient care also leads community education in East Bay schools, employer trainings, and partnership work with Alameda County health services.
Three pillars structure the work at HHPL.
Vocational Rehabilitation: Recovery for working adults requires re-entering work successfully. Return-to-work coaching, FMLA navigation, and employer-disclosure planning are clinical tracks, not optional add-ons.
Nature as Therapy: Our schedule begins at 6:30 a.m. with a nature walk and includes daily outdoor fitness blocks. Movement, fresh air, and time outside are clinical interventions backed by a robust evidence base.
Trauma-Informed Approach: Trauma-informed practice is the operating standard - intake questions, room layouts, group agreements, and discharge conversations are designed to reduce re-traumatization.
Co-Founder and Executive Director
One of the founding clinicians who opened HHPL in 2017. Board-certified in addiction medicine and previously on the Highland Hospital emergency medicine staff for nine years, Dr. Adebayo-Park oversees clinical strategy and the community partnership work that anchors the program.
Medical Director
Board-certified in addiction medicine and internal medicine. Dr. Castellanos joined HHPL from Kaiser Oakland in 2020 to lead the medical detox wing. He sets withdrawal protocols and chairs the weekly clinical rounds that coordinate care across the medical, psychiatric, and therapy teams.
Clinical Director
Margarita directs the residential and outpatient therapy curricula and leads the trauma-informed care training cycle for the entire 56-person staff. A licensed family therapist with subspecialty training in first-responder populations, she designed the early-riser outdoor schedule that organizes the residential day at HHPL.
Contact us today to learn about our programs and dedicated team.