Saint John recovery centre forced to close

Steve MacDonald had an idea, helping recovering addicts by giving them a place to try and continue their road back to a better life.

As a former addict himself, he wanted to give back.

He runs Forward House on Saint John’s west side.

Or, he did.

“What we do is we’re kind of like the aftercare from treatment,” MacDonald said. “They guys go to treatment and they learn all this stuff about addiction and why they’re in addiction and they learn about what they need to do in order to be able to live in a life of recovery.”

MacDonald said the problem with rehab is that sometimes people go through a program and are thrown back into what he called “their war zones” or back into shelters.

“They’re expected to take these things that they’ve learned in treatment,” he said.

“I’m going to he honest with you, I’ve been to some of the treatments here in this province, and they don’t learn a whole lot.”

He said a big issue is the expectation that recovering addicts take what they learned in recovery and put into use on their own.

But he said that didn’t work, and he came away with a way for recovering addicts to learn how to live their life and recover in real time, and do it together with others in various stages of recovery.

MacDonald said a fee was charged for room and board.

“We supply food and we were taking guys to meetings,” he said. “We require them to go to several meetings per week.”

But money became an issue. MacDonald said he had to go back to work to not only pay his own bills, but to keep the house operational.

He’d been trying to keep the house running for two years, but he couldn’t get any assistance from the Department of Social Development or New Brunswick housing.

“N.B. Housing has come in and they said our newly renovated house wasn’t up to N.B. Housing standards,” he said. “So they’ve denied any kind of assistance.”

On top of that, because he didn’t own the house, there were no grants available to renovate and meet the standard N.B. Housing was required.

With bills piling up and no financial assistance, the decision was made on Feb. 28 that Forward House would be closing its doors.

“Over the last 2 years we have seen so many people join and leave our community and we pray that each of them have continued success in their recovery journey,” the organization posted on Facebook. “We have been there for several one year celebrations and have been there to help those who have left and returned to try again, without judgement.

“We are so proud to have been a part of every person’s life that has come through our facility. Unfortunately, due to a lack of available funding, we have been unable to secure the purchase of our building and or find a mortgage holder to allow us to continue our service.”

MacDonald said some pretty serious debt was piled up over the last couple of years to keep the place running.

“The numbers aren’t working out,” he said.

“It sucks, but we don’t see any other options at this point in time.”

MacDonald expressed some frustrations about trying to keep Forward House running.

He said he reached out to different members of the provincial government, including Housing Minister David Hickey, but nothing ever came of it.

MacDonald he believes having a group together is an important part of helping people recover and maintain that recovery.

He said initiatives like the City of Saint John’s homelessness strategy is setting people up for isolation.

“Isolation is the biggest enemy for a guy in recovery,” he said. “Communal living is so ingrained into us, whether we’ve in jail or we’ve been in shelter situations or even on the streets.

“We’re expecting these people to succeed solo in these places that they’re putting them into alone.”

MacDonald said it’s important to recognize that communal-style living is an “absolute requirement” in recovery for a lot of people.

“You’re forgetting all these people who are in recovery that require community living,” he said.

“You’ve got illness and these people all have this illness, right? Which is addiction,” he said. “If we replace the ‘I’ in illness and replace with ‘we,’ you’ve got wellness. And that’s what kind of what we set up to do.”

MacDonald said he had three guys left in the house with no idea where they’ll be come the end of March.

He said he was being interviewed and started crying.

“How can I let these guys down like this,” he said.

MacDonald isn’t going to give up on either saving Forward House or trying again with something new.

“I mean, if we could find a way to even get a grant or purchase the building or get a get like a mortgage holder that would be willing to to do something with us so that we can get our name on it,” he said. “Then we can apply for grants. Then we can apply for funding to be able to subsidize it.”