Long Island Gets New York's First Residential Addiction Program Built Specifically for Young Adults

New York State has more than 220 residential addiction treatment programs. Until October 2025, not one of them was designed specifically for people between 18 and 25.

That changed when a facility operated by Outreach Development Corporation opened in Brentwood, on Long Island's Suffolk County. OASAS announced the opening as the first young adult residential addiction treatment program in the state — a distinction that, depending on how you look at it, is either a meaningful milestone or a reminder of how long this gap went unfilled.

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The Gap Between Youth and Adult Treatment

The challenge for young adults with substance use disorders has always been their awkward position in the existing system. Programs designed for adolescents — New York has six residential programs for people under 18 — don't fit people who are legally adults, living independently, or navigating early employment. Programs designed for adults often sit alongside people decades older, with life circumstances and treatment needs that don't map onto what a 20-year-old is dealing with.

Research on addiction treatment consistently shows that young adults respond differently to treatment than older populations. The adolescent brain is still developing well into the mid-twenties, which affects both how addiction forms and how recovery takes hold. Family dynamics, peer relationships, educational and career trajectories, and identity formation all intersect with substance use in ways specific to this developmental window.

What the Brentwood Program Offers

The Outreach Development Corporation program is built around those differences. Services include the standard components of residential treatment — group therapy, individual counseling, structured daily living — alongside elements added specifically for young adults: family engagement programming, life skills development, and employment readiness.

OASAS Commissioner Dr. Chinazo Cunningham described the approach as recognizing that young adults are "a distinct developmental phase" that requires treatment designed with "a balance of structure, autonomy, and connection." That language reflects a broader shift in how the field thinks about young adult care — away from simply applying adult models to a younger population, and toward building programs that meet people where they actually are.

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Why Long Island, and Why Now

The Brentwood location is not accidental. Suffolk and Nassau counties have struggled with opioid overdose rates that consistently rank among the highest in New York outside New York City. Long Island's geography — suburban, car-dependent, with limited public transit and fewer urban-density harm reduction services — has made treatment access particularly difficult for young people without reliable transportation or financial resources.

The program is funded in part through New York's opioid settlement fund, which has made more than $454 million available statewide — more than any other state in the country. OASAS has directed a portion of those funds specifically toward building out treatment capacity in underserved areas and for underserved populations. Young adults on Long Island fit both categories.

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A Structural Problem, Not Just a Gap

The absence of young adult-specific residential treatment in New York until now reflects something broader about how the addiction treatment system evolved. For most of its history, the system was built primarily around the needs of older adults with long-term, severe substance use disorders. Youth programs addressed adolescents. The middle — the 18-to-25 cohort — was assumed to fit somewhere in the adult system.

The evidence was always that this assumption was wrong. Studies on treatment engagement consistently show young adults have lower treatment completion rates in adult programs, partly because the treatment culture and peer group don't reflect their experience, and partly because the practical demands of adult programs — work requirements, family obligations — don't account for where young people are in their lives.

The Workforce Question

There is also a staffing dimension. Treating young adults well requires clinicians who understand adolescent development, can engage families constructively, and can work across the intersection of addiction, mental health, and early adulthood. That workforce is not large, and training it takes time. OASAS has acknowledged the addiction services workforce as a constraint on expanding access — its ongoing leadership institute and internship programs are partly designed to address that pipeline.

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What Comes Next

The Brentwood program is one facility serving one part of Long Island. New York has 731,000 people per year moving through its addiction services system. The young adult population within that number — people for whom this kind of specialized programming is most relevant — represents a significant share of new treatment entrants each year.

OASAS has signaled that the young adult residential model is part of a broader expansion, and the settlement fund provides the financial foundation for additional sites. Whether more follow, and how quickly, will depend on the availability of suitable facilities, trained staff, and continued political will to prioritize a population that is easy to overlook in favor of more acute crises elsewhere in the system.

For the young adults who end up at the Brentwood facility, the question is simpler: is this the program that works for them? That answer will take time. But for the first time in New York, at least the question can be asked.