Mother’s mission
Getting recovery house off the ground proving a battle
RUSTICO – Dianne Young’s pursuit to help save lives has been fueled with a fierce intensity that has earned mixed reviews.
She has had her share of missteps and setbacks in her oft-repeated goal of working towards
ensuring her son did not die in vain.
Young first became a force to be reckoned with when her 29-year-old boy, Lennon Waterman, chose to end his life in November 2013 by leaping into the cold North River on a Friday night.
Just days later, a grieving Young visited The Guardian office to highlight how she felt the province’s health-care system had failed her son.
She said Waterman did not receive the help that he needed from addiction treatment and mental health services.
Her heartfelt plea for improvements to the system would not be a fleeting call.
She has, for the past six years, been relentlessly urging government to do a better job to help people struggling with drug addiction and mental health illnesses.
She has held protests.
She organized suicide awareness events.
She even took a failed run at political office in 2015 in the hope of being able to play a role as a politician in improving the mental health system in Prince Edward Island.
Her biggest undertaking, though, has been working to open an addiction recovery facility in the province.
She got off to a good start when the Diocese of Charlottetown donated its former Belcourt Retreat Centre in Rustico to serve as the future home to Young’s dream facility.
Lennon Recovery House Association Inc., named after Young’s late son, was established in March 2017.
Getting the building in shape has been a long and costly endeavour.
“I stepped in and the house was in shambles,’’ she recalls.
Close to $300,000 has been spent so far on repairs and maintenance. More than $40,000 in work is still needed on the top floor of the large, three-storey building that sits in a scenic, peaceful location at the end of Church Road near the Farmer’s Bank of Rustico History Museum.
The building has a warm, comfortable feel after more than 1,000 volunteer hours and a hefty amount of donated furnishings have been pumped into the place.
Young told The Guardian she hopes to open by the end of this year – she says calls come
in daily from people wanting to know when the facility will open - but hefty operational funding needs to be secured.
She estimates Lennon House will have an annual operating cost of $760,000 with a staff of about 15 full- and part-time employees, including an operational manager and two program facilitators.
The business plan, she explains, calls for each client paying $2,500 per month in a facility that will be able to house 32 clients when renovations are complete.
Young is counting on the province, which has already invested close to $200,000 into the project, to be willing to cover the bulk of operating costs.
The province, however, wants to see Lennon House get its house in order before it considers how it may further assist.
“In order to better understand Lennon House’s operations and how we may be able to help them move forward, we have asked the board of directors to provide several documents including updated business and operating plans and financial statements,’’ the government said in a statement to The Guardian.
“We have offered to engage a consultant to help the board develop these plans, which will also help guide Lennon House as an organization into the future.’’
“We recognize that the board, staff and volunteers of Lennon House,’’ the province adds, “have tremendous passion and a strong commitment to helping Islanders struggling with addiction. They are a community partner that we would like to work with.’’
Young has seen a steady turnover on the board of directors, which currently only numbers four with her hope of doubling that number.
Two people who recently left the board are extremely critical of Young.
Debbie Bovyer, a retired nurse and past president of the Union of Public Sector Employees, says Young, who is an employee and not a board member, tried to run the show during Bovyer’s handful of weeks on the board.
“It was total chaos,’’ says Bovyer.
“The board was not making any decisions in regard to Lennon House. They were all being made by Dianne.’’
Patsy Somers, who has left the board after serving for a short time as interim president, says Young continually refused to take direction from the board.
“It is just a continual cycle of people resigning (from the board),’’ says Somers, who had worked at Lacey House, which provides a 24-hour supervised therapeutic environment to assist women in maintaining a chemical-free lifestyle.
Somers believes Young needs to be removed from Lennon House for the facility to move forward.
Young dismisses the criticisms of the former board members and is adamant about remaining a key player in the recovery house.
“I’ve been kind of drug through the coals here,’’ she says.
“They are trying to basically tear me down and I can tell you I have nothing to hide…No one is more passionate about this (facility) than I am.’’