Delta House was closed April 1, the victim of funding cuts from the Department of Health and Social Services. Managed by the Inuvik Alcohol Committee, the residence was the first live-in drug and alcohol treatment centre of its kind in the NWT, and served people from across the region.

Now the committee has turned a corner. With former Delta House executive director Sandra Malcolm, the committee has formed Turning Point, a program that will soon provide drop-in (rather than live-in) drug and alcohol treatment.

Meanwhile, Malcolm has received approval in principle from the territorial Department of Justice for a new use for the currently empty Delta House building: under an early release program, Delta House has won approval to house YCC inmates as a way to reintegrate into the community those inmates on the last stages of their sentences who qualify.

Like the former drug and alcohol treatment program, the centre would be the first of its kind in the NWT. Malcolm said the program would involve alcohol and drug counselling, skills training, some employment, and would be heavily dependent on elders and other volunteers to help run the program and just to spend time with the inmates.

Malcolm said the 12-bed facility would need little in the way of security measures, because those inmates who qualify for the program would be thoroughly screened, and those who posed risks to the community would not be accepted.

"This will not be a maximum security facility," said Malcolm. "The people who would be released (to Inuvik) for such a program would not require that kind of supervision."

The centre would offer 24-hour supervision of inmates, and those who break curfews and other house rules would be promptly punished, perhaps even returned to Yellowknife Correctional Centre.

The centre will take on the feel of a bush healing camp, she said, with about five full-time employees running the program. Such a program "gives a person at least a change at rehabilitation," said Malcolm. "It's a whole lot scarier to have people offered no rehabilitation" before release.

While the contracts for the program have yet to be signed, Malcolm said she's been told by the department that it will approve the project. "It is happening," she said, noting July 15 might be a likely opening date.

If any residents have concerns about the project, they are asked to contact the Inuvik Alcohol Committee, and make a presentation before the board with their concerns.