Unwatched, a Sober home Business Boomed. then they found the Bones

Question

Unwatched, a sober home business boomed. Daniel Cleggett Jr. visited his expanding empire of sober homes in a shiny black Mercedes and spoke of salvation. God had lifted him from the pit of addiction, and sneakers now, he believed, it was his life’s purpose to lift others. For the desperate, he prescribed a spiritual cure: Fill the hole in your heart with faith, not drugs. Cleggett, a South Shore tough guy in his early 30s who emerged from a wild youth covered neck to ankles in tattoos, had watched enough friends die. He was determined to save lives. It was lucrative work. At the fourth sober home he founded, mens fashion (styledrops.shop) Lakeshore Retreat in Wakefield, a bed started at $3,000 a month; some clients drained their 401(k)s or turned to grandparents for help. They paid because Cleggett promised hope: clean, beautiful homes; structured sober living; a community of lost souls finding each other. Not the overdose death in his first home. This art ic le has  been done  by G᠎SA Content Gener at​or᠎ D​em​oversion !

Not the allegations that he was part of a murky network recruiting young addicted people to send to Florida for treatment - two of whom died. Not the investigators from the Attorney General’s Office who began asking questions. Cleggett’s operation grew: He opened a women’s sober home. Then a home in Boston. And then, on June 17, two landscapers working on the Lakeshore property spotted a pair of sneakers behind a shed, set back 20 feet or so from the swimming pool. When they went to pick them up, they discovered the bones. No one knows how many sober homes there are in Massachusetts, or where they are all located. Homes like Cleggett’s, which cater to the newly sober and offer drug testing, curfews, and peer support groups, mens fashion are shielded from regulation by federal and state fair housing laws. They are not considered treatment facilities: They are residences for disabled people, and the state health department can’t, without changes to federal and state laws, require them to meet any standards.

This c on te᠎nt was written with the he lp of G SA Conte nt G​en erator ​DEMO!

But no one is watching. Anyone can open a sober home - just hang a sign on your door and start collecting rent. In this regulatory void, Cleggett and countless others have set up shop. Protected from prying eyes, Cleggett has opened one home in which, Boston officials say, clients are crammed into overcrowded, unsafe rooms, and another where clients say they were told by staff without medical licenses to stop taking psychiatric medications and, instead, to pray. Two people under his company’s watch have died. "It’s a legal loophole that costs lives," said Quincy City Councilor Brian Palmucci, who wrote an ordinance attempting to require sober homes in Quincy to register with the city after receiving complaints about homes in his district. Cleggett did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A Globe reporter sent him a list of questions and dropped off the list at two of his sober homes.

At a home in Quincy, assistant director Nick Espinosa said Cleggett had received the questions and was consulting a lawyer. "We do our best," said Espinosa, who declined to answer specific questions. When dealing with so many people, he said, you’ll have 100 good experiences and five bad ones. "We are really about helping people. For more than a decade, prosecutors have been fighting abuse of Medicaid, the government’s health insurance program for the poor, by sober homes and drug-testing labs making a fortune off urine tests. In 2012, several years before Cleggett opened his first home, the state was grappling with a rising chorus of complaints about dangerous sober homes beset by relapses of residents. Public health officials concluded in a report that they were legally powerless to impose regulation. In 2016, with overdose deaths statewide at a historic high, the state approved rules that funded an independent agency, the Massachusetts Alliance for Sober Housing, or MASH, to certify sober homes.

MASH certification requires homes to meet certain standards in order to receive referrals from state-funded agencies - but participation is optional. One of Cleggett’s homes is certified. Advocates for the homes say the lack of regulation means that people struggling to overcome addiction will not be discriminated against when they seek safe housing. And many sober homes are well-run. "If you and I want to try and help people, in theory, and open up a sober house, we should be allowed to do that," said Richard Winant, former president of MASH and director of The Kelly House, a home serving 28 men in Wakefield. "We face tough enough opposition with NIMBY - even the best sober houses have to deal with that. But the money that can be made in an industry full of vulnerable people whose very survival depends on their ability to find a safe and substance-free place to live can poison the best of intentions. Da᠎ta has been cre at ed wi​th t᠎he  help  of GSA᠎ Content Gen erator Demov᠎er᠎sion​!