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NEW BEDFORD — The residents of Ward 5 wanted action.
Not everyone agreed on what that action should look like — some didn’t even know. But the unsettled crowd of 100 people at the last Ward 5 community meeting expressed a unanimous demand that city officials do something to clamp down on unregulated sober houses.
“There are sober homes going up throughout the city,” Former Mayor Scott Lang said at the June 12 meeting. “It’s got to change, because it’s going to hollow out every neighborhood in the city.”
Knowing that targeted zoning regulations could violate anti-discrimination laws, some residents said the city should enforce existing building codes against sober houses so strictly that the properties go out of business.
Little did Lang and his neighbors know, a quiet code enforcement effort had already begun.
This month, the city sent letters to more than a dozen sober houses telling them they need a lodging house license. Some also received letters saying they will have to install fire sprinklers, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. And the city has taken court action against two sober houses to investigate them for code violations.
Some people in the recovery community say the city appears to be targeting sober houses.
“It seems in the last year or so New Bedford has really cracked down on this issue,” said Denise Menzdorf, executive director of the Massachusetts Alliance for Sober Housing. She said she hoped the enforcement was fair — that is, not targeting sober houses — but she acknowledged it would be hard to know.
City spokesperson Jonathan Darling says the city is routinely enforcing the law the same way it does for all properties. The city sent licensing letters to all properties that qualified as lodging houses under state law, he said.
“The requirement is grounded in concerns about public health and safety, including, as we’ve witnessed firsthand in New Bedford, the risk of fire,” Darling said in a statement. “It applies to all lodging houses, including those that hold themselves out as ‘sober houses.’”
Sober houses, also known as sober homes, are shared living spaces for people in recovery from addiction. They generally don’t have clinicians and they aren’t treatment centers — instead, they serve as an intermediate step between treatment and independent living.
Recovery advocates say the ideal sober house provides a stable, drug-free environment where people can live for a few months while they get back on their feet. But some sober houses are more sober than others, recovery advocates say, and the worst ones can be hotspots for relapses and overdoses.
Sober housing is not a regulated industry, though operators can get a voluntary certification from the Massachusetts Alliance for Sober Housing, a nonprofit organization that works under contract with the state to maintain standards at sober houses. Ten properties in New Bedford have a MASH certification, out of at least 19 sober houses in the city.
Federal and state laws limit the city’s ability to regulate where sober houses can go. The federal Fair Housing Act bars cities from introducing housing policies that discriminate against people with disabilities, and substance use disorder qualifies as a disability. A state law called the Dover Amendment makes it illegal for cities to enforce policies that discriminate against congregate living environments for non-related people with disabilities that wouldn’t apply to families or other groups of a similar size.
“We aren’t able to stop sober homes from coming to New Bedford,” City Solicitor Eric Jaikes said at the Ward 5 community meeting.
But some residents have been calling for the city to come up with a plan to control these properties since the fall, when Moreland Terrace residents protested the opening of a sober house in a historic home at 52 Ash St. They said a sober house didn’t fit the historic character of their neighborhood and should not be allowed to operate in a single-family home.
City enforces lodging house rules on sober houses
The city has taken the position that sober houses count as lodging houses.
On June 6, the Licensing Department sent letters out to owners of 44 properties saying their place qualifies as a lodging house, and they have to appear within 30 days to apply for a license or face possible civil and criminal penalties.
Of those properties, 20 have been involved in providing some sort of recovery services, and 12 of them have been sober houses but may not all still be operating, The Light confirmed through multiple sources. Of those, 17 were not registered as rooming houses a year ago.
“The letters from the Licensing Board were sent to every lodging house in the city,” said Darling, the city spokesperson, in a text message. “If new lodging houses come about, they will be required to be licensed in accordance with the law.”
Darling said the Fire Department has also sent out 18 to 20 letters this spring citing a different state law on lodging houses, requiring the property owners to install fire sprinkler systems.
For the city license, a lodging house is defined as a house rented to four or more people who are not within the “second degree of kindred.” That would mean the relationship of an aunt or uncle, grandparent, niece or nephew, half-sibling.
Fire sprinklers are required for lodging houses with six or more people. Installing the sprinkler systems can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
This latest enforcement push follows one that took place in the spring of 2023, weeks after a fire in a rooming house on Acushnet Avenue left two people dead. It turned out that the house had no sprinkler system and a record of fire code violations.
Mayor Jon Mitchell announced last July that the effort was getting results — six rooming houses had installed sprinkler systems, six more were installing them, two were facing city legal action, and five had shut down.
At least three sober houses were included in that enforcement push — one had a sprinkler system, one was actively installing a system, and one had ceased or reduced operations enough to not be subject to the sprinkler law.
Michael Phillips, owner of a MASH-certified sober house who received letters from both the Licensing and the Fire Department, said he was not sure what to make of it.
“Why is this happening?” said Phillips, who owns the Courage to Change house on Thomas Street that can accommodate up to 13 men. “This is a MASH-certified house … I thought we were all set.”
The certification is not protection against enforcement of state laws on lodging house licenses and fire sprinklers. The state’s second highest court has ruled that the sprinkler law applies to sober houses. That decision by the Appeals Court in 2020 has so far been the last word on the case that originated in 2017, when a sober house operator in Fitchburg challenged that city’s enforcement of the state sprinkler law.
Scott Boucher said he received Fire Department letters in April, and the Licensing Department letters on June 14. He and his wife, Dawn, own two sober houses on Sears Street. He called this “selective enforcement” targeting a sober house, and challenges the claim that he’s running a public lodging or rooming house.
In an interview and in written appeals to the state Automatic Sprinkler Appeals Board, part of the Massachusetts Fire Safety Commission, Boucher argued that his houses do not meet the six-person threshold for fire sprinklers.
The 12 Sears St. house, which the city property record categorizes as “single family,” accommodates five women in recovery. The house at 6 Sears St., listed as “two family” in the city record, has one unit on the first floor, one on the second, each housing five women, Boucher said.
He said each unit has its own kitchen and bathroom and operates independently, and would not be subject to a sprinkler requirement if it were occupied by five related people.
He argued that a sober house should not be equated with a lodging or rooming house.
“We are NOT OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC,” Boucher wrote in a two-page appeal mailed to the agency. “We have a rigorous intake process to determine eligibility only to women in recovery who AGREE TO ALCOHOL and DRUG FREE accountability.”
Dawn Boucher emailed a more simple appeal to the Licensing Department, asking for “reasonable accommodation as an alternative to the lodging application” for the two houses.
Boucher said the estimates he’s been given so far for installing the fire sprinkler system, including the finish work, come to more than $90,000.
Michael Phillips, owner of the sober house on Thomas Street, said he’s been given estimates of $50,000 to $70,000 — money he said he doesn’t have.
There is a relatively new state grant program for sober houses facing these costs, but the money in the first budget allocation does not appear sufficient to meet demand.
Menzdorf, of MASH, said the organization working with the Department of Housing and Community Development has run a sprinkler grant program that launched about 18 months ago. The grants up to $80,000 per home are available to MASH-certified homes that have been operating for at least a year and found to be maintaining proper standards.
The first allocation was $3.8 million, she said, about half of which has already been committed to 27 sober houses across Massachusetts. There are 60 to 70 pending applications for grants, Menzdorf said, and a request for a new allocation did not make it into the state’s most recent budget.
City takes some sober houses to court
The city has filed a housing court case against Calderia LLC, the operator of the MASH-certified sober house for up to six men at 52 Ash St., over building code violations. Five people currently live at the property.
A judge issued a warrant to inspect the property in May after the city received anonymous complaints that there was unpermitted construction and the property was being operated as a sober house.
As a result of that inspection, the city cited Calderia for violations of the electrical, plumbing, building, fire, and architectural access codes.
The violations included a citation for a large bulge in one wall, which an inspector testified was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Other building code violations included citations for a lack of guardrails and handrails on the porch, a cracked storm door, water damage on the roof, and a bathroom that was boarded up. A fire escape had not received a required five-year inspection.
The city also cited unpermitted electrical and plumbing work, and for not having fire sprinklers. Additionally, the property was cited for not meeting accessibility requirements.
Earlier this month, the city asked a judge to issue an injunction that would require Calderia to stop operating the property as a sober house, relocate all five residents, and fix the violations.
Andrew Tine, a lawyer representing Calderia, said the citations at 52 Ash St. were “nitpicking,” and pointed to the citation for a cracked storm door. He said the electrical work was only for a few wires, and it’s common practice not to pull permits for minor work.
“If someone wants to bust your chops, they can say you should have gotten an electrician involved,” Tine said. “The laundry list they came up with, to me, looks like someone said, ‘Go in there and find everything you can.’”
Tine also took issue with the property’s citations for violating accessibility codes, including wheelchair access requirements. He said sober houses could not exist if they all had to comply with accessibility requirements.
He said he thinks the city is targeting sober houses. Four sober house operators have contacted him in the last three weeks, he said.
In court filings, Tine wrote that the city did not provide his client with the required written notice of the violations before filing a court case, which is “unusual” and “indicative of discriminatory purpose.”
“The city has veered from its typical approach for handling these types of violations because in the ‘big picture’ the neighbors are complaining about the use of this property as a sober home in ‘their neighborhood’ and this is not about the city working with a Property owner to make a property safe,” the filing said.
Tine’s filings cite the Dover Amendment, a state law that protects congregate living environments for disabled people from discrimination.
On Friday, Housing Court Judge Donna Salvidio ordered Calderia to get the proper construction permits and come back for another hearing in July, though she did not grant the city’s request to move residents out. Instead, the property must keep its current occupancy at five or fewer residents, which is below the six-person threshold for the sprinkler law to kick in.
In the meantime, Calderia has asked the city for a “reasonable accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act to be exempted from accessibility requirements.
The sober house at Ash Street is not the only property facing court action by the city. On June 13, city inspectors entered a sober house at 7 Plymouth St., a MASH-certified sober house for up to 12 men, after a judge issued a warrant allowing them to inspect the property.
Ward 5 residents raised concerns about the house because the owner and a resident are registered sex offenders. Caezar D’Amante, the owner, was convicted of “dissemination of matter harmful to minors” in 2012 and “trafficking of persons for sexual servitude” in 2016, his public registration shows.
Matt Silva, a building inspector, along with a plumbing and an electrical inspector, were at the inspection last week. Also on hand were two inspectors from the city Health Department.
Before he went into the house, Silva said his department got word from neighbors that it appeared there was some sort of work going on in the house. Meanwhile, department records showed no permits had been issued for work in the house.
All five inspectors went into the house shortly after 2 p.m., and were inside for about 40 minutes.
After the inspection, Silva said there were no apparent violations. Whatever work was going on was “not to the extent that I had heard.” He said there is still a question of how the owner intends to use the house. He said one person is living there, but there is more than one bed in the house.
“It’s going to be more than one person living here,” Silva said. He said no further steps were planned at the moment, but much depends on how the owner decides to use the house.
Email reporter Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org
We followed ALL the rules including common sense and compassion. Still the mayor is persecuting law abiding citizens by attempting to criminalized reasonable solutions
We are not exploiting fire or building codes for profit, we are in compliance 100 percent already, we will not be criminalized for saving lives and souls
Every other day on here I see folks complaining about unhoused addicts in their neighborhoods and I’d bet those are the very same people lodging complaints about sober housing. It often feels like this city doesn’t recognize addicts and the homeless as the community members they are. They don’t want them on the street but they don’t want them in a home either; they want them to disappear. I hope they feel the full weight of their actions and inactions bear down on their consciences someday.
I fully agree with you. The city purportedly wants to prevent homeless encampments from popping up, but doesn’t want any of the community infrastructure that prevents people from becoming homeless to begin with. They have to live somewhere. As you said, if not in sober homes or on the street, then where? A significant proportion of the city either has, had, or will have a substance abuse problem. That’s just a fact in our society. Nearly everyone knows someone with one. Preventing sober homes from being created or run will do nothing but cause more grief and homelessness on our streets, and there’s no guarantee that the next person who needs a placement won’t be someone related to a person currently protesting them, or even the protestor themselves.
In addition, protesting a sober house being built in Ward 5 because of its “historic character” is ridiculous. Do you know what the “historic character” of Ward 5 was from the 1600’s to the early-1900’s? Farms. Rural Cemetery wasn’t named “Rural” for no reason. And what about the “historical character” for the thousands of years prior to colonial settlement? Semi-nomadic farming and hunter-gathering. That’s the “historical character” of all of New Bedford at one time or another. Why is a sober home or an apartment building for that matter not in line with the “historical character” of the area but single-family suburbia is? If we really wanted to bring the area back to its “historical character”, we’d have to demolish every building in the city and live in longhouses.
As for the “but the children!” argument. North Front St probably has more children living along it than any single street in Ward 5, but if a sober home was set there, would anyone care? Doubt it, because the children of North Front St are generally poor while those in Ward 5 generally aren’t. Their parents are too busy working long hours for too-low-pay to protest even if they wanted to. It’s an argument that prioritizes the aesthetic preferences of the affluent over the needs of the poor, just like the whole housing issue as a whole.
Sober homes are needed and these people are some of the most vulnerable members of society. These sober homes are being run as a business for owners to collect money. There are no requirements in place for them to receive proper therapy and health care. Other cities in the commonwealth have put for legislation to elect committees to be able to support , inspect , and hold these homes accountable to actually helping its residents . New Bedford has nothing in all this time to even draft a bill . When asked at meeting they kept avoiding answering the question. They have not been proactive and they are reacting very very slowly.
These places are do dangerous. These people would be better off sleeping under bridges….
I say we go with illegal imirgrants,we don’t know who they are or there criminal background or general health, we know nothing about there sobriety or vaccination status yet the state of mass has spent 1 billion dollars feeding and housing them yet a short time ago the state of mass fired many state troopers for not being vaccinated
1 billion dollars could have done wonders for all our moms, dads, sons, daughters, brothers or sister’s suffering from drug addiction
These people are still living human beings and we are trying are to help them the best way we can but it is never enough for them the best we can do to if possible I have been there and the I’m sorry but when more can I do . I send in a check for $100.00 and the answer is never enough my best is never enough
Thank you zach, jg and patricia for all wise, compassionate and common sense. You guys should run for office. Together we need our silent majority and responsible adults who actually demonstrate leadership to speak out loud.
Zach did run and we will be lucky 🍀 if he does again.
Vote them all out!
It’s time for a New Breathford in New Bedford
So much money comes through this city and in my opinion, it’s misappropriated. Vote them out – the council is ineffective.
City council members are ill informed and self absorbed – they move on issues like mud and this city is stuck in their mire and after 50 years … still top 5 of poorest cities in the State.
John Mitchell?
City Council ?
What the hell?
It’s not right to make it difficult for these people to recover. There is one of those houses near where I live and it’s great to see how they help each other. As for expensive sprinkler systems? Maybe the city should make those mandatory for any rental property. I see more Hispanic immigrants crammed into apartment. They have far more people than these sobar houses do. They also smoke & drink, so they are a fire hazard too. The city needs to be fair to all it’s residents and not let a select few discriminate against people trying to recover.
People experiencing drug and alcohol addiction lack protective factors that can offer a path to recovery. Housing is the main one. People need to be housed whether they are intoxicated or not. Addiction is not a moral disease.
My question is what are the Fairhaven, Acushnet, Wareham Mattapoisett communities doing to house people besides referring people back to a city that is already overburdened.
How many sober homes are there in Fairhaven? Marion etc
Why, is New Bedford continually relegated as the gate keeper for the poorest of the poor? It’s impressive. We need to share the cost burden of addiction because Sober home residents come from Fairhaven, yes Marion, and even South Dartmouth!
VOTE them out!
Since people rely on these house to assist in recovery, the city should provide the funds to bring houses up to code.
I brought a friend into Scott’s run program Aug of last year she has regained control of her life thanks to both Scott and dawn she has regained employment in what she loves to do recently purchased a vehicle I want to say thank you to both Scott and dawn if it wasn’t for them my friend would not of relieved the help she has on Aug 19 she will be 1 year sober congratulations J.D.on your recovery
I am the guy the one who has been through it and I have ways to protect these houses u can reach me at 978 871 7871 there is sonthing can be done to buy u two years to get u the sparkler time u need call between 9 and 5
Just wanted to say thanks to Caezar D’Amante. He was able to provide my brother with housing. Because of the Freedom House, my brother was able to get paroled and be home in time for the holidays.
Freedom House is a godsend. Caezar D’Amante helped my nephew when he was homeless and had nowhere to go. Fast forward 6 months, my nephew is still sober and he is working towards getting his CDL license. Thanks Freedom House. http://www.recoveryisfreedom.org
Thank you Caezar!
Caezar helped me to get released from prison. He helped me find employment and he mentored me. He gave me an opportunity when no one else believed in me. Thank you Freedom House!
Thank you! Mr. D’Amante
Mr. D’Amante provides his residents with medical licensed professionals to administer medications and mental health services
I live next door to Mr. D’Amante’s Sober House and I never seen anything out of the ordinary. The outside of the house is well maintained and quiet. As far as I know, he’s doing God’s work in the community.
I appreciate everything that Mr. D’Amante has done for my son.
To all, I thank you for your input and support. It is greatly appreciated by me and the Freedom House team. I will continue working to improve my sober living program to help and to better serve the people in community that are struggling with substance abuse issues. Recovery is Freedom Corporation (Freedom House), is a transformational recovery organization that offers community support to individuals coming out of incarceration and homelessness, guiding them toward healthy and meaningful lives. We are a network of recovery homes that provide safe, stable, structured, and sober living arrangements. We believe in helping those in need of a second chance transition back into the community, while providing a safe space where they can connect with social services, find meaningful employment, and locate long-term housing.
For more information please visit us at http://www.recoveryisfreedom.org or call me at 781.500.5802. Thank you!
-Caezar D.
Thank you Caezar and Freedom House for all of your support.
Hi my name is Wendy and I’m one of the nurses that goes to Mr. D’Amante’s Sober house to pass out medication to his residents. The home is very clean and structurally sound. The house manager Kevin is great! Caezar’s home is by far the best sober house in New Bedford!
Great work Caezar D’Amante!