Pubdate: Wed, 18 May 2005
Source: Times, the (CN MB)
Copyright: 2005 the Times
Contact:  http://www.weeklies.ca/times/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3428
Author: Josiah Thiessen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

NORTH-END GROUP PROVIDES FAMILY FOR ADDICTS

Helping Someone Battle An Addiction Isn't An Easy Day Job.

Now imagine bringing it into your living room, stretching the hours right 
around the clock, and scrapping the paycheck.

Welcome to the Freedom House.

"Welcome," is the word on the lips of the people who run this home-made, 
live-in, addictions counseling program.

Side by side on College Avenue in the North End, two homes are open to 
addicts who know they can't break free on their own.

The houses aren't run by an organization, and the resident staff aren't 
earning wages for what they do here. This is their home.

Joe Eapen is convinced that the patchwork community that shares one roof 
and eats together whenever possible, is the kind of environment someone 
needs in order to kick a habit.

Eapen isn't a professsional counselor. He's 29, has a degree in political 
science, and teaches part time at Chancellor Elementary School. But he's 
spent a lot of time hanging out with addicts on the streets of Winnipeg in 
the past seven years.

Eapen and a pastor friend of his used to walk the streets twice a week 
talking to whomever they met. As they did, Eapen began to realize how few 
of them had the support they needed to break out of the destructive cycle 
of addiction. Short-term detox programs only seemed to work for a little while.

"A lot of people we've met in different environments lacked a healthy 
community," said Eapen.

Four years ago, Eapen's friend and his wife decided to buy a condemned 
house on College Avenue and, with Eapen's help, they renovated it and 
started a family-style rehabilitation program called the Freedom House.

When the couple moved to Los Angeles, Eapen bought the house.

Now there are two houses on College Avenue open to addicts, with a third 
one under construction.

Money to buy and renovate the second and third houses came from a $200,000- 
grant from the Winnipeg Housing and Homelessness Initiative, but those who 
live there support the homes' upkeep by working part time and sharing 
necessities like cars and lawnmowers.

Seven people have chosen to make these houses home. Helping those with 
needs and addictions isn't their job, it's part of their lives.

Every week Eapen and others still walk the streets of Winnipeg looking for 
people in need.

"We don't want to ignore the poor anymore," says Derek Eidse, who joined 
the initiative with his wife, Joy, a couple of years ago. "We live in a 
society that does."

Those who want to join the program are welcomed into one of the houses. 
Every day the residents spend time with them, working out at the gym, 
playing sports, cooking, cleaning, learning job skills, singing and praying 
together.

Eapen is forthright about the spiritual element of the program.

"Our real goal is to change the way people think about themselves -- about 
God. Once that happens the addictions will fall off," he says.

Eidse says an addiction is usually a symptom of a deeper problem or hurt.

"I've seen people who stayed off drugs while they were here but refused any 
kind of internal change," he says. "That's when it doesn't work."

So far, four of the seven people who have gone through the program, which 
can last anywhere from three months to three years, are keeping clean, says 
Eapen. Another eight are living the two houses right now.

But regardless of whether they get free from their addictions or not, Eapen 
says he wants all those who have spent time with the community to come out 
of it knowing they have friends who will support them no matter what.

Though most of the permanent residents, or "helpers," don't have formal 
training in dealing with addicts, Eapen says they work closely with 
professionals in the community, to whom they can turn if necessary.

Joy Eidse says she's done a lot of her own research on how to deal with 
addicts. But she's had to call 911 on more than one occasion when faced 
with a crisis she couldn't handle alone.

"When you work with people that are in crisis a lot, you expect it," says 
Joy, who's regularly in contact with people facing alcoholism, sniff, drug 
addictions and even attempted suicide.

She and Eidse believe that anyone can learn to help those who are in need.

"We're trying to do this... to show that it can be done by everyone," he says.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom