Dal students share residence with teen addiction centre

"It’s obviously a challenge to have frosh partying in the same building as teens fighting substance addictions" - Dal spokesman

New students crowded the hallways of Dalhousie University’s O’Brien Hall the weekend before school started. Excited and nervous, they crammed their belongings into their new dorm rooms.

As a resident advisor helped Martin Stevenson move, she told him some surprising news. Half of his residence was home to a teen addiction centre.

Looking forward to a fresh start, after a year at Carleton University in Ottawa, 19-year-old Stevenson began a new school year at Dalhousie this fall. His living situation wasn’t exactly the change he had expected.

Stevenson shrugs off the fact he didn’t know in advance, but adds, “I probably should have been informed.”

The Choices program signed a five-year lease with Dalhousie last year to occupy four floors of O’Brien Hall. Choices is part of the IWK Childrens Hospital’s mental health and addictions program. It is for teenagers with substance abuse and gambling problems.

Stevenson thinks that everyone was nervous during those first few days. He rolls his eyes. “My mom was a little concerned.”

Swipe cards dictate which floors students and Choices teens can access. Those in Choices can only stop the elevator on floors two through five. Dal students inhabit the rest of the seven-floor building.

Sharing the elevator is the greatest challenge, says Sue Mercer, senior director of the Choices program. It requires co-ordination because Choices teens need to be escorted by staff when they leave their floors. “So far, so good,” she says.

There are 14 beds for the residential component of the program, but there can be 20 to 30 teens a day at Choices when outpatients are included.

It’s difficult sharing the building, Mercer says. Dalhousie students are allowed to have alcohol in the residences, with certain restrictions.

It’s obviously a challenge to have frosh partying in the same building as teens fighting substance addictions, Mercer says. Choices didn’t anticipate students moving in when it signed the contract, but “Dal students have been very respectful,” Mercer says.

There haven’t been any incidents since the students arrived at the beginning of September.

Last year dorm beds sat empty at O’Brien Hall and across the Dalhousie campus. Charles Crosby, a Dal spokesman, says the university worked hard to fill spaces this year.

“Perhaps a little too good a job, as it turns out,” he says.

The school knew it was possible that rooms could be occupied by Dal students, which is why it kept four floors for itself, Crosby said. The reaction from students in O’Brien Hall has been positive, he claims.

But Stevenson smiles widely and holds up four fingers. This is his place on the waiting list to leave. The 20-minute trek to school is a bit much for him and he wishes there were more Dal students in his building.

Having the Choices program in his residence is odd, Stevenson says. He laughs and shakes his head as he recounts how much drinking he’s been doing.

“I just think it’s a little ironic that we’re sharing a building with a rehab centre… they’re trying to get better and we’re trying to make ourselves worse.”

Comments on this story are now closed