On-campus housing now available for students in recovery from substance use disorders

For the first time, Virginia Tech has dedicated a specific on-campus housing option for students in recovery from substance use disorders.

Students in recovery at Virginia Tech are part of a living-learning community coined The Roost located within Payne Hall and overseen by a staff member with the Virginia Tech Recovery Community, a unit of Student Affairs. Living-learning communities traditionally are built around a particular theme and consist of students with similar interests.

An official ribbon-cutting ceremony for The Roost is scheduled for Friday at noon outside of Payne Hall – the first of many events planned for National Recovery Month held each September. The Roost consists of 14 beds on the same hallway as the Recovery Lounge, which houses Virginia Tech Recovery Community staff offices, offering easy access to staff members, a kitchen, and space for gatherings.

This semester, five students are living in The Roost, according to Kaitlin Carter, assistant director in the Virginia Tech Recovery Community. Carter said the remainder of the beds have been filled with students thoroughly vetted as ones safe and supportive of the recovery community.

“Having a recovery housing option is a nice resource and a next step to grow your community,” Carter said. “What we were finding and what is very typical for students is that if they’re living off campus with roommates who aren’t in recovery themselves or who maybe aren’t understanding how important it is to support people navigating recovery and sobriety, that can be difficult.

“For students, especially those in early recovery who are at higher risk of returning to use, being able to live in a community with others who are also in recovery can enhance their recovery capital and minimize return-to-use risk because they have support immediately available to them.”

The move follows a recent nationwide trend of universities dedicating residence hall space for those looking to grow stronger in their recovery journey.

Carter initiated the process to bring the living-learning community to campus by submitting a proposal, as required by Virginia Tech’s Office of Living-Learning Programs. In December 2022, all sides agreed to a partnership between The Roost and Meraki, a living-learning community in which students focus their passion, creativity, and souls into finding themselves through well-being. Fittingly, those in the Meraki living-learning community also live in Payne Hall, creating symmetry between the two communities.

In January 2023, Jack Waldon, an associate director of living-learning programs, and Carter created a steering committee to come up with policies and procedures for The Roost.

“We really wanted to bring a vision to life,” Carter said. “We were thinking about what we want the community to feel like for students in recovery, what we wanted programming to look like for them, what their unique needs were and are, on down to naming the community and coming up with a logo and all of that fun stuff, and going through our first year of recruitment. We’ve been meeting for about 18 months, and then we recruited our first group of students starting this past October.”

Students in recovery go through an application process through the Office of Living-Learning Programs to live in The Roost. That process includes responding to a prompt about what recovery means to them and a face-to-face meeting with Amy Terry, the Recovery Community coordinator and Roost program director, to determine fit.

That meeting also offers staff members an opportunity to educate students in recovery about their programming. The cornerstone of the community are the four recovery meetings that take place each week – the Wellness Wednesday meeting for anyone from any walk of recovery life; the “Send Dudes” meeting on Mondays for male-identifying students; a Saturday meeting for women and non-binary students in recovery; and a Thursday meeting for loved ones, students who maybe aren’t in recovery themselves, but have watched loved ones, whether it be their parents, friends, or roommates go through that experience and need extra support.

While those meetings aren’t mandatory, students living in The Roost are required to attend a Virginia Tech Recovery Community recovery seminar each week. The multimodal seminar is designed to be a unique learning experience that fosters personal growth and community building by providing opportunities to explore topics related to recovery, addiction, academics, and wellness.

“That allows us to say, ‘Hey, even if you can’t come to any other programming or any of these other things, this is a requirement of the program, and it’s still giving you intentional time to focus on recovery this week,’” Carter said. “That’s really the goal, creating as many opportunities as possible for students to be able to prioritize recovery in ways that align with the hecticness of a school schedule, maybe a part-time or full-time job outside of school, leadership roles in other organizations, things like that. We get this touch point with them, and we know that we can have that time where we’re encouraging them to intentionally focus on their recovery.”

Carter said that the Virginia Tech Recovery Community staff is already seeing an impact with the decision to offer an on-campus housing option for students in recovery. According to her, a current freshman cited the on-campus housing option as a primary reason for deciding to attending Virginia Tech.

The opening of The Roost represents the latest milestone for the Virginia Tech Recovery Community – a supporting and affirming location for students on their recovery journey.