SHOULD NEWTON RESIDENTS FEAR TREATMENT CENTRES?

At the age of nine, John Volken was sent to an orphanage in
Germany.

He lost his father to the war and his mother to a serious
illness.

Some might become hardened and bitter about their fate at such a
tender age but Volken, a deeply religious soul, believes his time in
the refuge with his 30 "brothers" was a fine character-building
experience that helped mold the man he became.

"I had a wonderful time," he says of the orphanage.

"I though some day when the time is right I'd like to be involved in
that type of work."

Volken, 66, later immigrated to Canada and went on to create a
business empire as the owner of United Furniture Warehouse and became
a multi-millionaire.

In 2004, he decided the time was right for him to shift gears and help
those in need just as the caregivers in the German orphanage once helped him.

He sold his assets to The Brick and pumped nearly all his cash into
the creation of the John Volken Foundation, which funds Welcome Home
in Newton, a residential treatment centre for troubled men, some
ex-cons, who have struggled with drug and alcohol abuse.

Welcome Home, which currently has 15 men ranging in age from 22 to 52
years old, is billed as a therapeutic community for men who have
already been through detox and are ready and willing to take the next
steps in getting their lives back on track.

"The key to a therapeutic model is peer pressure to change," explains
manager Bill Kooner. "You're accountable for everything you do. You're
accountable to your peers, so if you're screwing up, not carrying your
workload, your peers call you on it."

With its rigid set of rules, the goal of the program is to teach the
men leadership and job skills.

They currently live in several houses in the Newton area and come to
work daily at Welcome Home's shop, which sells furniture, clothing and
other department store type items.

But Volken has bigger dreams.

He wants to consolidate all of Welcome Home's facilities under one
roof and is proposing to build $20-million, 72-unit complex complete
with a gym, classrooms, gardens and other amenities. Although it's
being billed as a "high-end condo" the proposal has come under fire
from Newton residents who say their part of town is already saturated
with recovery houses.

Opponents fear for the safety of their kids and a drop in property
values.

Kooner believes the community doesn't understand what Welcome Home is
all about. The society has tried to ally fears at a recent public
information meeting by dispelling misconceptions and
stereotypes.

"Our biggest issue is to educate them about what we're doing," Kooner
says.

The community, he acknowledges, fears the residents will be wandering
their streets. "That's what they think, that there's going to this
huge 72-bed facility with druggies and alkies who are going to be all
day long wandering around their neighbourhood," he says.

While the facility isn't a jail, "our guys are not allowed out on
their own" without an escort.

The daily routine is strictly regimented, beginning with a wakeup call
at 6 a.m. followed by chores, work at the store and lights out by 11
p.m.

Kooner says the idea is to keep the clients so busy that they crave
bed at the end of the day and keep their minds off the lure of drugs.
"A lot of it is keep them, busy, busy, busy. An addict's worst enemy
is spare time."

Grady Whims, 29, has been at the facility for 15 months and doesn't
fit the typical profile. He says he grew up in a good Christian home
but started smoking pot when he was in high school and slowly slipped
in with a bad crowd and bad ways.

His drug use escalated and he eventually became a crystal meth user.
"It got to the point where crystal meth was like coffee."

He tried to kick his drug habit many times but kept sliding back. He
finally hit rock bottom when he got into a scrap that left him with an
eight-inch knife gash to his arm, still deeply scarred. None of his
"friends" came to visit him in the hospital and later only made
contact to reach his drug dealer.

Welcome Home, he says, has made a huge difference in his life. He
plans to stay for a few more months and then hopes to train for a
career in auto repair.

"They're taking the bottom two per cent of the population and they're
making men out of them," he says. "Life is good," he adds. "The
possibilities are endless."