Future of Edmonton Drug Treatment Court in limbo

The Edmonton Drug Treatment Court is laying off staff amid questions about the future of the program.

The program allows addicts to avoid jail if they successfully undergo treatment and report to a judge each week.

The federal government has decreased funding for the program, which is operated with the John Howard Society. The Alberta government plans to make changes but hasn’t said how.

Now the program that has operated in Edmonton since 2005 is ending at the end of the fiscal year.

“As of March 31, we no longer have funding to continue our current model of the program,” said executive director Grace Froese.

“Which means we have five staff that have been terminated as of that date.”

Froese can't tell clients what happens after that date, because she doesn't know herself. She said people are worried, especially those who have recently entered the program. 

“They're just frantic, and in this type of population, because they already have so many abandonment issues, there’s  so many issues that go along with an addiction, that this of course escalates some of that,” she said.

Peer support co-ordinator Pamela Spurvey is losing her job. Right now she spends more time with the 16 remaining clients, so they don’t return to their old habits. .

“When something comes along that's chaos, you're an addict right?  What's the first thing that sometimes you think of, right?” she said .

“When things aren't going well, you want to relapse. So, we don't want to see that to happen with any of our clients.”

There is concern the Alberta government won’t make up the shortfall in federal funding

The province is having to take low oil prices into account while preparing the 2015-16 budget.

Premier Jim Prentice has already indicated there will be cuts to government spending.