The people living there are not typical nursing home residents. They are older adults with serious substance use disorders who also have complex physical or psychiatric conditions. For years, many of them had nowhere to go — too unwell for independent addiction housing, but not fitting the mold of a standard nursing home either.

De Waalboog was created specifically for people stuck in that gap.

A Model Built Around Reality, Not Just Recovery
At the heart of the De Waalboog approach is a simple but significant shift in thinking: abstinence is not the goal. Residents receive standard elderly care alongside regulated access to alcohol, cannabis, or substitution medications like methadone.

The quantities and timing are agreed upon between residents and their caregivers, making substance use a managed part of daily life rather than a hidden or chaotic one.

Ewoud de Jong, a physician at the facility, put it plainly. Older people with addictions often don't qualify for traditional nursing homes, he explained, while psychiatric and addiction care settings aren't equipped to handle serious physical decline.

De Waalboog bridges the divide by bringing in external experts in addiction and psychiatry to work alongside its in-house geriatric care team.

One resident, a 59-year-old woman named Door, previously struggled with cocaine and heroin addiction. She now receives methadone twice a day on a fixed schedu.