Industrial park chosen as site for Red Deer's drug 'recovery community'
Government initially said the centre, not yet built, would start accepting patients this spring
The Alberta government and the City of Red Deer have chosen a 10-acre plot of land in an industrial park at the northern edge of the city as the site for an addictions "recovery community" that will require sobriety from its residents.
Construction is expected to begin this fall on the 75-bed facility, announced last summer as one of five new provincial addiction treatment centres. At the time, the government said the centre would likely start accepting patients this spring.
"We are taking a wholly different approach in addiction," Jason Luan, associate minister for mental health and addictions, told CBC News on Thursday.
"It is not about service utilization; it is about how people's quality of lives get changed."
Luan said residents will need to be sober when they enter the treatment centre and will not be allowed to use drugs, including at supervised consumption sites, if they wish to remain there.
"It is not going to be very helpful, that on one hand, people are still in the stage of not [being] able to get out of dependency on the drugs, still consume it" while undergoing treatment, he said.
The government says the recovery community is modelled on an evidence-based approach that offers long-term residential treatment for substance abuse disorders.
People will be able to apply to enter the program or may be referred by another agency or doctor. A resident's length of stay will be determined by their needs but will likely range between 30 days to a year, Luan's press secretary Justin Marshall said in an email. Marshall did not say when construction of the centre will be complete.
Site on outskirts of city
Both Luan and Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer said the treatment centre's location in the Chiles Industrial Park, right beside Highway 2A, was chosen in part because it is away from the downtown core.
"For the people who will reside in these 75 beds, it is important that we provided a location where they would be able to live and recover as a community amongst themselves, within our community," Veer said.
"And this land location — it is still within our city's borders — but it is outside of that urban core" where residents are removed from "some of the prospects that maybe wouldn't help them, or old relationships, or patterns that wouldn't help them in their recovery," she said.
Critics, including harm reduction experts, have said the United Conservative government has an ideological opposition to harm reduction, and is more focused on abstinence and addressing concerns from property owners than implementing proven treatment strategies.
The province's substance use surveillance system shows there were 56 overdose deaths in Red Deer in 2020, and 12 in the first three months of 2021. The majority involved opioids.
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An accredited non-profit agency will operate the centre and will be selected through a competitive formal process, Marshall said.
He said the government would not comment on the cost of building and maintaining the centre until a construction vendor has been chosen, but he said the province will cover the centre's construction and operating costs. The government previously said it would commit up to $5 million.
Veer said the site is beside a forested area and an escarpment, and the city will work with the province to ensure the centre has privacy.
Luan said it will be a space for residents to reflect and work on "repurposing" their lives as they receive treatment.
"When you decide that you want a different life, you want to have a life of dignity, respect, [be] constructive to society, that is a significant changing point," he said.
"Truly, when people graduate from such holistic treatment programs, it is a transformational personal change."