Surrey addiction recovery facility shutters after losing registration battle with province​on March 27, 2025 at 12:03 am

A well-known addiction recovery facility in Surrey is closing for good after a government shutdown order. The closure comes after several allegations of unpaid labour, strict behavioural controls and unsafe working conditions for residents.

The provincial Ministry of Health revoked John Volken Academy’s registration last year for violating the Community Care and Assisted Living Act. After months of challenging the decision, the academy’s founder said Tuesday he was giving up, but not before voicing his frustration.

“We’re here today to say, ‘What the heck are you doing?’” questioned Volken, an 81-year-old refugee from East Germany who first built a North American retail furniture empire with United Furniture Warehouse.

In response to abuse allegations, Volken defended the facility’s approach, saying, “Parents tried all the nice things. If we are just nice to them (it doesn’t always aid in their recovery).” He added that, “(Working) is better than sitting on the couch and being a couch potato.”

Still, the founder — who has spent the last two decades running the recovery program, which has residents work on businesses owned by its society, including at a Langley farm — insists that its life-skills program has helped turn residents’ lives around.

“They live there, they progress, they learn trades. And, you know, we have a store there. We have a lot of buffalo, bison, chickens, pigs. And it’s an awesome life.”

Volken also criticized the ministry’s approach to addiction, saying, “The safe injection sites, all those things don’t work. They don’t work.”

The ministry postponed the closure until March 7, giving the Academy time to arrange housing for its 19 residents.

Volken said his charitable foundation will continue to operate its Langley farm at 23480 40 Ave. with 12 former Academy students now employed as paid workers, although it will no longer offer the recovery program.

He added that the centre’s facilities in Surrey have now been sold for close to $78 million, money that will go back into the foundation to fund its other programs.

Before the shutdown, academy residents stayed sober by living together and working six days a week, eight hours a day at its businesses, including a moving company, a now-closed market, and at a Langley farm raising bison and water buffalo. Clients aged 19 to 34 paid $7,500 to enrol in the minimum two-year recovery program.