DURHAM'S TROSA TAKING GIANT STEPS

Anti-Drug Agency Building A Home

DURHAM - In its latest sign of growth, TROSA, Durham's highly regarded
residential program for substance abusers, is launching a $4 million plan
to create a residential campus at its James Street headquarters.

To pacify its wary neighbors, TROSA also will move most of its industrial
operations -- such as construction and bricklaying --about two miles away
to its warehouse near Alston Avenue. And it has agreed to cap the number of
residents at 275, the current number, and to allow neighbors to comment at
each stage of its building plan.

The change is founder Kevin McDonald's idea for guiding growth at TROSA,
which started as a handful of residents living and working in an abandoned
school and has become a $6 million-a-year operation.

"Now we're planning ahead to make it better for the residents, to have that
campus feel," he said. "This is pulling it together."

At TROSA, which stands for Triangle Residential Options for Substance
Abusers, drug and alcohol addicts spend two years living and working
together to learn new job skills and rebuild their lives. It's the largest
residential treatment program in the state, and part of the program is
group therapy.

McDonald wants to build the housing over five to eight years in three
phases on TROSA's James Street property, a former dairy plant. It would
include room for about 250 people, housed in two dormitories that would
accommodate 70 people each and a mix of four-unit apartment buildings,
single-family houses and townhouse duplexes.

Putting all the residents on one campus, McDonald said, will save TROSA the
thousands it spends each month to pick up the residents every day, take
them to campus and then to their jobs, and take them home again. It also
will simplify things. TROSA has people scattered across town in 22
apartments, duplexes and a converted elementary school.

The campus idea plays well with neighbors such as Jennifer Albright,
treasurer of the Tuscaloosa-Lakewood Neighborhood Association.

"It's students, it's people learning how to make different choices in their
lives and learn some new skills," Albright said. "After two years, you can
change your life. It's pretty remarkable."

McDonald had to get the association's blessing before he could go ahead
with his plan.

The prospect of adding 250 recovering drug and alcohol addicts to James
Street -- about 20 will still live off-campus --made some neighbors uneasy.

"When a place is empty at night, it's different than when it's like a
little beehive all the time," Albright said.

They didn't want TROSA to change the character of their neighborhood of
working people and professionals. It has brought an industrial character to
the part of James Street south of Nation Avenue, with its vans and trucks
rumbling in and out, Albright said.

The neighbors got to put their 2 cents in when TROSA needed a change in its
land-use permit from the city. They held two meetings on the TROSA plan.
TROSA's lead architect, Dan Jewell, came to the meetings, presented his
drawings and answered question after question.

The neighbors extracted a few concessions. The biggest one was moving
off-campus the industrial businesses that train workers and finance the
organization. TROSA's moving company, construction company, landscaping
company, painting company and masonry department will move to a warehouse
at Elizabeth and Mallard streets in North/East Central Durham. With them
will go dozens of tractor-trailers, moving vans, painting trucks and other
equipment.

Also, TROSA agreed to move most of the junk cars it keeps for teaching its
residents car repair. Only 30 cars will stay on the campus at one time.

In the end, getting the OK was a matter of trust.

After all, some TROSA residents are nonviolent offenders and are there as
an alternative to jail, said Albright, the neighborhood association
official, and putting any large number of people in one place, whether in a
rehab program or a college dorm, creates a certain energy.

"On the other hand," Albright said, "he has totally guaranteed us there's
no reason for concern. I think we should operate on that assumption, and if
we have issues, our job is to work with TROSA and the Police Department if
something comes up. That's all there is to it."

Now the big push is raising the money for the plan, McDonald said. As with
everything at TROSA, that isn't easy. For one thing, a $277,000 no-interest
grant the City Council tentatively approved two years ago for TROSA is in
doubt because of a technical glitch. So TROSA is looking for bank loans and
scrounging donations wherever it can, such as from the company that gives
bricks to the organization every month.

"I'm never gonna ... " McDonald said, then chuckled. He couldn't say "give up."

"We'll do it one way or the other. That's just my philosophy."