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Walsh: Woman died in unregulated 'sober house'
By adamg on Thu, 06/27/2013 - 2:36pm
State Rep. and mayoral hopeful Marty Walsh says the address where a woman was found dead yesterday was a place for recovering drug addicts to live without any supervision. A resident of 752 E. 4 St., Martin Jimenez, faces arraignment today for her death.
Walsh vowed to clean them up if elected:
Unregulated sober homes are a problem in Boston, where the housing stock in some neighborhoods – big, rambling structures that once housed large families – are attractive to companies looking to maximize profits by advertising sober homes despite the fact that these homes are poorly run, with no programmatic basis, and no oversight. Some of them exploit families by offering recovery hope to people, while in reality, they offer no path to recovery.
As Mayor, I would clamp down on unregulated sober houses, with their misleading promises and inherent problems, so they don't continue to make their way into the news by operating as breeding grounds for trouble. We owe it to the neighborhoods and to the good programs to work on legislation that will address these issues.
Walsh serves on the board of directors of the Gavin Foundation, which runs residential substance-abuse programs in Dorchester and South Boston - including one on E. 4th Street two blocks from the building where the woman was found dead.
"They are closely monitored, supervised and regulated, as they should be," he said.
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Comments
Sober Houses
or Crack Houses as we call them. There's quite a few of them in South Boston, and they are all owned by the same couple of landlords. This has been going on for years and the City does nothing about them.
They are also a problem in
They are also a problem in Roxbury and Mattapan, haven't heard much from Marty about those ones.
Can't the city and state do
Can't the city and state do something about shady methadone clinics too while they're at it? There's a big gulf between real treatment centers and a good lot of the so called clinics in the city right now.
Which one are you thinking of?
There are four methadone clinics in Boston, and all are under pretty stringent regulation by DPH in terms of protocol they have to use to start people with daily dosing, then one day of take-home at a time, up to taking a whole week home. They're required to keep good records as far as doing tox screens and verifying participation in therapy and work and whatnot before they can allow take-home doses.
As far as quality of therapy provided by the programs, yes, it varies widely. It really comes down to funding, and they don't have enough to get anything but interns and recent grads (and the rare veteran clinicians who stick with it because they really love the work).
What problems have you heard of? If there are things happening like people getting take-homes and abusing them long-term and not having their privileges revoked, you should report this to DPH.
If we put more resources into treatment
... and fewer into criminalization and incarceration, this wouldn't be an issue.
See also: Portugal
+ 1000
Amen. Methadone is highly regulated and necessary and proven to be therapeutically effective. Count your blessings if opiate addiction has not touched somebody you love. Methadone works when the patient is seeking to be healed.
Tear it down...
Tear it down and build a condo ASAP.
The Original SoBo Yuppie
Gratification
There is nothing more gratifying than to buy a flop house, putting up Sheetrock, installing $2600 worth of stainless steel appliances from Home Depot and selling it as "luxury" condos to you yuppies and your moronic parents.
I just wish there were more of these properties in Southie. As long as the imbeciles want to keep living here for the wrong reasons myself and the IRS will keep making a boatload of money.
Ps: please do not tell any other developers how.easy this is.
What are the "wrong" reasons...
..to want to live in Southie?
I've been living here 8 years. It's a quick commute to work. It's a short walk to the beach. I can walk to a grocery store, a restaurant and to a bar to watch a game.
During the blizzard, I was away, so my OFS neighbor shoveled out my entire walkway and my yuppy neighbors spent 2 hours helping me dig out my car.
The people on my street say hello and ask how I am. I feel very safe.
Which of those would be considered the wrong reasons to move to this neighborhood and be a part of this community?
Stainless steel is nice, but you can call a condo "luxury" in Mattapan and it's not going to attract a lot of buyers. People aren't moving to Southie for luxury. They're moving here because it's a great neighborhood. The stainless steel and new sheetrock is just something people prefer over mustard colored appliances and stucco.
You don't seem to have a problem taking your piece of the pie though. If it's possible to flip a house for $2600 you could instead sell it back to OFS for significantly less and keep the yuppies out.
I can name a few wrong reasons
from reading local real estate ads:
1. Steps to the Beer Garden, Stats etc.
2. On the parade route
3. Close to M Street dog park (This is not a dog park.)
4. Off street parking (with a picture of the school yard next door).
Most 23 year olds that
Most 23 year olds that frequent Stats are not buying houses yet, they're renting. No one seems to mind collecting the rent from the yuppies. Bought the house cheap 30 years ago, mortgage is paid. Could rent it back to OFS, but you'd rather get the high rent from the yuppies. I'm not saying they shouldn't benefit, I'm all for making some cash off an investment that turned to gold. I'm saying don't complain about the yuppies when you're happy to invite them in when it benefits you.
I don't see why being on the parade route is a wrong reason. Southie has been long proud of the parade, if you're on the route, you can watch it from your front steps. Sounds good to me!
M Street Dog Park? I don't have a dog, I don't appreciate dogs running around near small children or sh*tting on the playground, but I don't see any reason why dogs and their owners can't find a way to co-exist in that large park with the rest of the park users. Maybe the community can section off a piece of the park and gate it so dogs and their owners have some place to go without disturbing the rest of us.
New condos
next to the bakery and across the street from a firehouse are on the parade route.
I wouldn't pay $790k for one of these, unless there was something wrong with my rationale.
Then again sitting on your steps to watch the parade is priceless.
Granite countertops
Gotta have granite counter tops too. Perhaps the resin impregnated, recycled paper ones so buyer's "green" idealism goes into developer's pockets. Formica? What is that?
hey southbostonyuppie. tear it down?
ok south boston yuppie! who probly drinks everyday after work and gets completely trashed on thee week ends if u think a real recovery program like a methadone clinic should be torn down and u think all those people who go there r junkie pieces of sh*%(I kno u didn't say that but im getn that kinda vibe frm ur comment) then maybe u should jus move bk to where u came frm.
but then again where ever u came frm is probably a lot worse. I find it so funny how most of u yuppies think ur better than us OFS people and think that if ur a drug addict, alcoholic, or (how do I say this? ill put it as u probably would)race trader then u should be put in front of a firing squad! I just think that's so funny. I had this yuppie couple living under me, young successful lawyer n his successful fiancé. they had those same feelings that I jus spoke of, and u kno what this asshole would call the cops on the neighborhood kids when they gt to loud on the wkends drinking n having some harmless fun. and this same yuppie would get completely TRASHED I mean off his rocker drunk! at least 3-4 x's a wk and YELL n SCREAM at his girl and BEAT THE SHIT OUT of this poor girl.
YA I KNO!!!! u yuppies r SOOO much better than the rest of us RIGHT!?? guess wht this poor girl actually accepted his hand in marriage, but not b4 they moved out of southie!!! cause us OFS and junkies, alcoholics, n race traders let this piece of sh*% kno the last time he came down his stairs n threatened us w/the cops because we were being to loud LAUGHING(n not drinking jus honest 2 goodness fun n laughter)that we knew he was beating his girl and the next time we here it going on he'll b lucky if we call the cops. we never heard her gt beat again. but they moved out. I wouldn't be surprised by wht ive heard down there if shes not found dead. he came frm a yuppie home where his father was a closet drunk n used to beat his mother n cheat all ova her. how do I kno? I could hear him crying drunk after he hit her using that as his pathetic punk coward excuse!!!!
so tear it down??? I dono u, ur fam and friends might needs a sober house or methadone clinic sumday. cause problems like addiction and abuse don't discriminate!!!
ELECT MARTIN J. WALSH
At last, a candidate that is willing to look at the malfunctioning "recovery business". The present administration ( and I am counting the days until it's outta' here...) has never touched the issue. Too busy funneling favored development projects through the BRA.
Sober Houses come under Disabilities Laws
and therefore cannot be kept from opening because it would automatically be called discrimination.
There are a few landlords who run some real shit holes, one is a lawyer who runs a place in roxbury - globe did a big story on the business a few years back - several deaths in or around his properties as a result of ODs. In one of these cases the manager got residents to move a body from the sober house and dump it somewhere else in the neighborhood so he wouldn't get in trouble. (found under some poor neighbors back porch a few days later). Many of these places are not sober houses at all but very easy to get drugs on site, prostitution all over the place.
AND THE STATE PAYS A LOT OF MONEY FOR THIS! because people coming out of prison or who avoid jail by going to rehab must live in one of these places, and their rent is paid for by the state.
Many of the residents would prefer to live in safe, sober environment but if it's a circus where they live, chances are they're going to go back to their old ways.
Read the Dorchester Reporter and search their history on stories about this issue.
All of the politicians are concerned about this problem but how to attack it without going against the disabilities law is the problem
Cut the money
The solution to problems like these is to cut the nourishment, the tax or insurance dollars going into the pockets of slumlords. Make qualification for the funding sources include being a real program, supervised, and accredited. City housing inspectors can enforce existing codes.
insurance does NOT pay for ur room in sobo house as far as i kno
ive know many people who have lived in these houses and they all had to pay cash rent to live there.
you might be right but as far as I kno the fee to move in and the weekly rent is on the person living there. well any sobo house ive known of where people I knew personally lived there, they all paid cash rent any where from 400 to move in, n between 150-175 a/wk. if u didn't pay u were out.
Sober Home
As a neighbor to this "sober Home" I can tell you first hand, not too many sober people there. The 7-11 doesn't have as many cars pull up and go in and buy something than this house had. They were dealing something out of that house, and the police knew all about it. Shame on the Boston Police, this girl died because they let these drug dealers kill her .