Youth experiencing addiction will soon have a safe place to detox in Albuquerque. The new detox center has space to house six clients, who can stay there for up to 14 days, or longer if medically necessary.
In February, Serenity Mesa, a transitional living service for youth in Bernalillo County, received $3.5 million in funding to start a medically staffed detox center on their property near Dennis Chavez Blvd. and 98th St. SW. The City of Albuquerque contributed $930,000 to the project and funding for the detox center will span over the next three years.
Currently, youth seeking help from Serenity Mesa have to be clean when they come in, said Director of Programming and Facilities David Burke.
“They meet with a therapist, and they give them a substance abuse disorder diagnosis, which they have to have in order to be here,” he said.
Because Serenity Mesa currently doesn’t have a detox center or proper medical staff, Burke said they have had to turn youth who are high and seeking help away.
“It’s a whole other level of cost and a whole other level of responsibility,” he said.
Burke, who has battled drug addiction himself, told City Desk ABQ that construction on the building that will house the detox center is completed and they received their certificate of occupancy in late March.
They’re now waiting to finish the accreditation process. Once that’s completed, they’ll be able to hire medical staff to oversee youth who are detoxing. They hope this process will be completed sometime this summer.
‘Where are they going to go?’
There are only 14 beds at the center and Burke said they have eight kids on the waiting list.
“So where are those kids going to go? They don’t go anywhere and then we get a bed that opens up here and they could be dead. They could be on the streets, and they could not want help anymore, because when you’re in recovery and you want help, you want it today. You don’t want it in a month when a bed opens up,” he said.
The 90-day treatment program feeds into Serenity Mesa’s housing program which helps clients with housing after they finish the program.
There are 15 beds just down the street from the center called, “The Village,” and 30 off-site apartments clients can live in after treatment. Clients can live at “The Village,” for two years in a sober environment.
Once the detox center is open, Burke said they’ll be able to help 72 clients, but still, that’s not enough. Serenity Mesa staff would like to expand and provide more beds, but they need money and space to do that.
“We don’t charge for our services and we don’t make money, so we have to go to the government. We have to rely on our city leaders, our county leaders, our state leaders to help us grow, help us expand, help us to provide more beds to do what we need to do,” he said.
The only thing preventing Serenity Mesa from helping more youth Burke said, is money and space.
“I could buy more buildings and provide more services for as many kids as they would allow us to, but those decisions are made way, way, way above my pay grade,” he said. “That’s all state officials, city officials, and everybody else who talks about wanting to do something.”
Turning down 11-year-old kids
Through the years, Burke said the types of drugs kids are addicted to in Albuquerque have fluctuated. Since 2021, about 80% of their clients have been addicted to fentanyl as their main drug, and it is usually mixed with others such as cocaine and methamphetamines.
They’ve also seen a shift in their clients’ ages.
“We’re seeing a lot more 14 and 15-year-olds who are getting addicted to fentanyl, whereas before, our average age was 18,” he said.
Burke said Serenity Mesa has had to turn down a couple of 11-year-old kids who were experiencing addiction.
‘It’s not their fault’
“Some of the trauma that some of these kids have experienced, you can’t even imagine,” he said.
One of their clients had been locked in a cage in a hotel room and was being pimped out to guys for sex and drugs, he said.
“That’s how she got addicted. It’s sick. It’s gross and it’s not fair for a lot of these kids because a lot of people will just look at these kids and say they’re bad people, they’re not good kids and it’s not their fault,” he said.
Though some kids do choose to take drugs, Burke said, some don’t.
“It’s not their fault. It’s the life they were forced to live,” he said.
The program
Since its opening on May 15, 2015, about 450 youth have come through the doors of Serenity Mesa and works with youth ages 14-21. The program also provides rental assistance for youth between 16 to 24 at The Village, and to 18-year-olds to 24-year-olds who are experiencing homelessness or a precarious housing situation.
Clients receive nine hours of therapy, including group and individual therapy per week, case management, and learn essential life skills such as how to open a bank account and balance a checkbook, how to change a tire on a car, and how to get a birth certificate and social security card.
“We teach them all of these life skills so that they can leave here if they’re of age they can be on their own and hopefully not go back to their environment that got them hooked on drugs,” Burke said.
Join the conversation about this story on Facebook
Help us grow City Desk’s audience by sharing these stories.