Roxbury residents protest sober homes

Yawu Miller

Shortly after the Fernandez II liquor store removes its safety grate for its 9 a.m. opening time, a small stream of foot traffic emerges from the newly constructed townhouses at Washington and Guild streets to make the half-block commute.

When they emerge, grasping paper bags, another day has begun on the eastern edge of Fort Hill, where the Safe Haven Sober Houses lodges an estimated 110 recovering drug addicts in its 12 three-bedroom townhouses.

Among the population in the buildings are 13 sex offenders — five of them level-three sex offenders and two of whom have been observed by area residents watching children at the Melnea Cass Pool and in local playgrounds.

Add that to three dead bodies found in and around the homes — two drug overdoses and one death by acute intoxication — and it adds up to a mass of angry Roxbury neighbors who have met eight times since February in an effort to get city and state officials to bring order to what may well be the state’s largest complex of recovering addicts in a residential neighborhood.

“We have a unique situation in Roxbury,” said state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson during a meeting last week. “There is no other community in Massachusetts that has a compound of sober houses. That really multiplies the impact in a way that hasn’t occurred anywhere else.”

The proliferation of drug and alcohol abuse in the area came shortly after the units opened. Sober houses are not marketed as drug treatment facilities, but rather a safe environment for people in recovery from drug abuse and alcoholism.

Sober house operators in Massachusetts often market their units in courts and receive referrals from probation officers. But after Wilkerson, state Rep. Gloria Fox and City Councilor Chuck Turner began calling on state and local officials to help with Roxbury sober houses, local courts and the state Parole Board stopped making referrals to the homes.

In addition to widespread allegations of drinking and drug abuse in the units, city inspectors and Fire Department officials found a number of violations, including overcrowding, with as many as 12 people living in the three-bedroom homes.

Inspectors also found inoperable smoke detectors, illegal occupancy in garages on the property and black mold in the units.

Michael Botticelli, director of the state’s Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, told residents at last week’s meeting that his department has sent letters to courts and sheriff’s departments outlining the differences between sober houses and drug treatment facilities.

Botticelli also said his department will ask sober house operators to register themselves with the state in an effort to help courts evaluate the effectiveness of sober houses.

“Currently there is no way for consumers and probation officers to distinguish between good programs and bad programs,” he said.

The reforms taking place at the state level have had little impact on the Safe Haven Sober Houses in Roxbury.

While local courts are no longer making referrals, according to Wilkerson, courts as far away as Haverhill and Agawam have been sending people to the Safe Haven houses in Roxbury.

Commissioner of Inspectional Services Bill Good, also in attendance at last week’s meeting, said his department wrote up violations, including a code violation for overcrowding.

David Perry, executive director of Safe Haven Sober Houses, will have to either move residents out of the homes or apply for designation as a rooming house. The latter option would require a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeal.

If Perry prevailed in the board hearing, he would still have to ask some residents to move out.

“There are limits to the number of people you can house, even in a rooming house,” Good said.

Good also said construction has been halted on a new home that developer David Fromm has been building on the site.

“Basically, there should be no work going on there. If anybody sees any work going on there, please call me,” he said in the meeting last week.

On Tuesday morning, workers were observed pouring concrete for the foundation of a new building.

Wilkerson expressed optimism that city and state agencies would bring the Safe Haven Sober Houses into compliance with the law.

“They realize that this is like a ticking time bomb,” she said.