Residents in Recovery has come a long way since starting with one house, five men and two staff in 2018.
With International Overdose Awareness Day and Recovery Week on the horizon, we sat down with the non-profit’s executive director Tyler Lorenz to talk about the organization.
“It was modelled after my recovery journey,” said Lorenz. “I had been incarcerated a number of times and found it difficult to get clean and sober, even though I wanted to.
“I was able to go directly from incarceration into a program, bridging that gap before I went to treatment. I managed to stay clean, went to treatment and went back into sober living for a bit. It actually worked for me this time.”
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After questioning why programs like those didn’t exist everywhere, Lorenz moved back to Lloydminster, went to school and began working to create one.
“All the pieces fell into place,” he said.
“We have so many people on our wait list, so many people on other wait lists waiting to get into detox, waiting to get into treatment … it gets disheartening.”
Tyler Lorenz, Executive Director for Residents in Recovery
Residents in Recovery now runs multiple houses, a five-plex and a seven-plex for families, an inpatient program for nine families and a daycare for 60 children.
“We’re still waiting on government,” said Lorenz about the new daycare. “They’re evaluating everything.”
The group also operates outpatient and inpatient day programming, an ID clinic every Wednesday and harm reduction services. Staff distribute naloxone kits and help unhoused individuals with detox and treatment applications.
“Our core program originally was pre and post-treatment sober living,” said Lorenz. “We still operate that program today. We only have two houses, one for men and one for women.”
“Residents has 13 beds right now. Easily triple that capacity and we would have no problem keeping them full. And then family treatment, you know, if there was a government funding stream … we could triple that capacity as well. Just like that.”
Tyler Lorenz, Executive Director of Residence in Recovery
He said capacity is the biggest challenge.
“We have so many people on our wait list, so many people on other wait lists waiting to get into detox, waiting to get into treatment. It becomes very disheartening,” he said.
“Beyond that, you go to detox, there’s nowhere for you to go when you get done. So, you just end up right back in the same place, then we have to repeat this process all over again. It’s disheartening for everybody.”
Lorenz shared the story of one of the first families in the program who is now a success story.
“She was unhoused … regularly visited by paramedics and the RCMP. She was in the hospital a lot overdosing,” he said. “When we finally got her into detox, then she came into our program from detox, got her into treatment … we got her reunited with her son.
“We actually moved her into a unit with her son where she stayed for over a year. Today, she’s been reunited with all of her children, she works in town and her children are all doing well.”
Residents in Recovery relies heavily on grants and donations.
“We get less than 10 per cent of our funding from government,” said Lorenz, noting more donations would help the organization expand services.
“We received well under $100,000 in donations last year. Probably five per cent of our funding came through donations and the rest has to be fee-for-service or grants.”
Looking ahead, Lorenz wants to see sober living and family treatment grow.
“We could operate 30 or 40 beds in this community and never have an empty one,” he said. “Residents’ has 13 beds right now. We could triple that capacity and have no problem keeping them full.
“If there was a government funding stream, we could also triple family treatment capacity as well. Just like that.”
Courtesy of Residents in Recovery Facebook
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