Nonprofit's Tewksbury Property Plans Worry Neighbors

TEWKSBURY, MA -- Into Action Recovery Inc., a Tewksbury-based nonprofit formed to open a sober house for recovering opiate addicts in town, has had an offer accepted on a five bedroom house, according to neighbors. While a completed purchase and sales agreement would be a major step forward for Into Action Recovery, residents of the neighborhood are concerned about the idea of having a sober house in the residential neighborhood.

The purchase is being made by Patricia Jo Hanley, whose son David Hanley is the program director for the nonprofit. Patricia Jo Hanley is listed as the nonprofit's president, according to state business records. Into Action Recovery plans to house about 12 recovering drug addicts in the house at 20 Fox Run Drive, which has five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and 3,762 square feet of space, according to the property listing.

Patch has contacted Into Action Recovery for comment and will update this story when they respond. In February, Into Action Recovery was rumored to be close to purchasing a house at 132 Whittemore Street. That house was sold to another buyer.

Neighbors will have little recourse to stop Into Action Recovery from moving into the neighborhood. Under Massachusetts law, sober homes are not required to be certified to operate unless they have contracts to provide recovery services for state agencies.

"I understand the opioid epidemic and the toll its taking on places like Tewksbury," one neighbor said in a phone interview with Patch. "But if more of these homes are going to pop up, they have to work with the neighborhood....when you start plopping down in areas where families live, you need to come in and talk with the neighbors. You don't just show up one day and have 12 men getting out of cars."

Sober houses are an interim step in recovery program. Residents live under supervision and in a sober environment. The homes typically have rules, curfews and chores for residents, as well as on-site meetings. According to Into Action Recovery, its proposed sober house would follow the 12-step recovery program made popular by Alcoholics Anonymous that has subsequently adopted to treat other forms of addiction.

Patty-Jo Hanley and her sister, Mary Ellen Cooper, co-founded Into Action Recovery in 2015 after Hanely's 31-year-old son died of an overdose. Her other son, David, also used heroin before getting sober at Number 16, a sober house in Wakefield. David Hanley has said he will model the Into Action Recovery program after the program at Number 16, which he credits with saving his life.

David Ray, who ran Number 16, was part of a group that is proposing a controversial drug detoxification center in Wilmington. Ray backed out of the ownership group last year after Patch reported on questions about his certification and his track record at the Wakefield sober home and another facility in Wenham.

"The catch with sober houses is that unethical owners can hide behind the federal housing discrimination act [and avoid oversight] by saying people have a right to live in any community they choose if they have a disability," Richard Winant, who runs the Kelly House, a sober living facility in Wakefield, told Patch last September. "You and I can go out and buy a house today and be running it as a sober house -- with clients -- by Friday."

Into Action Recovery has held fundraisers, including a $10,000 GoFundMe campaign. But the nonprofit was dealt a blow last year when the Baker Administration slashed a $200,000 grant that had been earmarked for the nonprofit from the state budget.

"It's unbelievable how many people are being lost that can't get treatment they're seeking," David Hanley, the Program Director of Into Action Recovery told NECN last year after the funding was cut. "It was like they pulled the rug from under us."

Hanley's own 31-year-old brother had died after overdosing shortly before Baker cut the funding, leaving a wife an 11-day-old baby. Derek Hanley was on a waiting list for a sober house at the time of his death.

Tewksbury has been hard hit with the opioid epidemic, with local police routinely making arrests of both dealers and users. In November, Tewksbury Police Chief Timothy Sheehan told Tewksbury Patch that the town's location near the junction of I-495 and I-93 put it in the midst of a "drug pipeline.

"The dealers get off the highway from Lawrence and make deals with those suffering from the disease of addiction all over those areas and, unfortunately, we get a lot of overdoses in cars and in the bathrooms of businesses in [Tewksbury] because the afflicted need to use the product as soon as its purchased," Sheehan said.

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Photo of 20 Fox Run Drive by Realtor.com.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).