The challenge

Few social problems pose as difficult a challenge as substance abuse, which is, in fact, not one problem but a complex matrix. Even if an addict wants to change, lack of education and job skills limit the likelihood of long-term rehabilitation. Moreover, society currently favors incarceration over treatment. “If it takes the best and the brightest adults four years to graduate from college,” says Kevin McDonald “and at least two more years for a graduate degree – wouldn't it make sense that an addict would need time and training to change his or her life?”

Seeds of commitment

Kevin McDonald began drinking at age 12; other drugs came later. As a teenager and young man, he overdosed so many times that his friends believed he would die young. His younger brother is now serving a life sentence in prison for a drug-related armed robbery; McDonald, who also supported his habit through armed robberies, ended up in a Los Angeles jail. While there, he learned of the Delancey Street Foundation, a successful rehabilitation program based in San Francisco. In 1979, he applied, was accepted, and began his two-year probation there.

“I ended up staying for 12 years,” he says, today. “I learned that I cared about other people and that I was good at helping people battle addiction. I realized that the ‘chance card’ that I was dealt could also be possible for others.” He also came to reject the self-pity that often accompanies substance abuse. Yes, some addicts could be considered victims, he says. “However, the true victims are the people who love the addicts -- their families and friends. My 87 year-old father feels guilty about my brother's life. My brother did the crime and drugs, but he also broke my father's heart.” Recognizing how Delancey Street had saved him, McDonald decided to dedicate his life to breaking the cycle of guilt, crime and heartbreak. In the early 90’s, after running a homeless parolee program for former gang members in Los Angeles, he headed with his wife for North Carolina and a new way of life.


Accomplishments

With the help of several people who wanted a long-term residential program in their community, McDonald launched Triangle Residential Option for Substance Abusers (TROSA) in Old North Durham. TROSA is a minimum 2-year residential rehabilitation program for substance abusers. It provides basic education, training in computers and other professional skills. TROSA began with a small cadre of clients, a run-down school building and a tiny food preparation business. Since 1994, it has grown into a sizable community of current and former clients. With the goal of becoming self-supporting, TROSA has created a variety of business enterprises that function as job and leadership training venues for more than 290 male and female residents. Businesses range from local and interstate moving to brick masonry, painting, catering and picture framing. McDonald has also created an in-kind department that solicits product donations from corporations. Residents are responsible for all phases of the business programs including job planning and estimates, work scheduling, crew supervision and resource allocation. An in-house construction department maintains and renovates TROSA's residential and administrative facilities spread over a 13-acre campus. In addition to the original elementary school, TROSA owns and has refurbished a second elementary school, two apartment buildings and 20 houses so that it can offer its two-year graduates housing and transitional services that include, access to affordable transportation and bimonthly support groups. “When people graduate from most long term residential programs, they’re chopped off,” says McDonald. “We’ve created low income housing for them. We give them donated cars, which they repair and own for the cost of the repair parts.”

Visitors to the program find a mission-driven organization that is efficient, resourceful, self-sufficient, opportunistic (in the best definition of the word) and effective. After a recent hurricane, McDonald mobilized his troops and sent them out to remove downed trees throughout the community, at no charge. His residents volunteer at downtown events, putting out chairs, setting up stages. “It's a brilliant strategy. People see their work and say, ‘Let me hire one of them.’” says Paul Nagy, director of the Duke Addictions Program at Duke University Medical Center. “He is providing a resource that is not rehabilitation, but a model of habilitation. These people never had it to begin with; this is the first time for them to develop skills. These are the most disenfranchised representatives in our community, and he gives them life.” Nagy also points out that, in collaboration with Duke, TROSA is beginning to work with people who are triply diagnosed with HIV, mental health disorders, and substance abuse.


How he leads

TROSA has become an outstanding example of social entrepreneurship. McDonald and his staff have been able to mobilize business people, policy makers, academics, town residents and program participants to work together for a common goal. He sees drug rehabilitation as community rehabilitation. “He is changing the face of these communities,” says Amelia Roberts, assistant professor, School of Social Work, University of North Carolina. McDonald also recognizes his own need for continued learning and personal growth, Roberts says, citing one example: “He was invited to a weeklong state conference on women's addiction. He was one of two or three men there out of a thousand people attending.”

He dealt strategically with a problem faced by many service agencies: NIMBYism, the not-in-my-backyard syndrome. First he campaigned for his program at neighborhood associations, gaining some support, then he applied a relatively little-known college and university zoning for the deserted dairy farm that would become the TROSA campus—a designation harder for the city council to reject, in a college town. “Not every town has that kind of zoning, but once you’ve got it, it’s more dependable. We’ve been good neighbors. One of my residents said, ‘Hey, man, pretty soon it’ll be PIMBY – please-come-into-my-backyard.”

The challenge McDonald now faces is staff growth. “During my first four or five years here, the program only had three staff members,” he says. “That meant we had to use the resources of our residents. With that population, a lot of leadership must be verbal. Today we have 20 staff members. Ninety percent of them are graduates of this program. But some members of the staff also have their doctorates. So now everything is written down. How do we integrate the addicts with these incoming experts? Each needs to appreciate the skills and knowledge of the other. That’s my challenge now, as a leader.”


The future

McDonald’s vision for the future of TROSA includes both expansion of programs and a larger physical plant. One warehouse will eventually become the site where TROSA's moving van fleet (ranging from 18-wheelers to step vans) and storage center will be housed. In conjunction with Duke University, he is exploring the possibility of a residential health program and facility that will serve both TROSA residents and people from the community who have serious long-term health problems such as H.I.V. and AIDS. TROSA also plans to expand housing for residents to 400 beds and to add additional housing for graduates by continuing to renovate houses – and possibly a 120-bed motel. His long-term goal: a four-year program, complete with living facilities, meeting rooms, medical resources and educational/training facilities. All of this will be connected to area universities. He is also aware that if TROSA is to survive, it must move beyond him. “I’ve seen dependence on one leader kill other programs. My goal is to lead myself out of a job.” In the meantime, people’s lives are being changed and saved. One visitor to the program recently wrote about meeting the people McDonald serves: “Every face you saw, every eye you looked into represented a redeemed life.”


More about Kevin McDonald

“Kevin is not smooth, nor does he try to be. He curses without much thought. But you get through that remarkably fast. He is not gaming you. He is who he is. He means what he says, he says what he means, he delivers. He knows the secret to good business is great service. Kevin serves as an inspirational leader who could lead his troops into any battle - even if it was clear the cause was hopeless.”
-- Paul Nagy, director of the Duke Addictions Program, Duke University Medical Center

“Building good businesses is good, helping during hurricanes is good, but saving lives is his impact.”
-- Amelia Roberts, assistant professor, School of Social Work, University of North Carolina