A ground-breaking ceremony was held Monday outside of the current Teen Challenge Alberta Men’s Centre location as the rehabilitation centre is set to be replaced by a new structure capable of accommodating twice as many guests.
The addiction treatment centre, located north of Priddis, receives no provincial funding and requires donations for its day-to-day operations and to construct the new facility.
“If I could just have you in on some of the phone conservations from some of the families and individuals that are phoning looking for help and asking how long our waiting list is, it is heart-wrenching,” explained Greg Cornelson, the centre’s director. “We really see a demand increasing nationally. We’ve had just about 100 per cent occupancy at all of its centres. We have plans to grow the organization quite substantially over the next few years.”
Teen Challenge Alberta has been helping people battling addiction issues between the ages of 18 and 65 since 1986 and has centres in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick. Facility clients pay $1,000 for the year-old long program while the remainder of the approximately $60,000 treatment is covered through donations.
The new 24-bed centre is expecting to open in the fall of 2019.
With files from CTV's Kevin Fleming
