They drove around the neighborhood looking for him, and packed his belongings into his suitcase and some trash bags and put them in the basement. They called Bates’s sister, who summoned police the next day. Another sister filed a missing person’s report two days later. Another woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was told to stop taking her Gabapentin and later her Paxil, and wound up attempting suicide shortly after leaving Lakeshore.
The Ruthven House (Women’s Home)
All three said they felt that in some respects, she got good treatment and that the 12-step approach gave her back her sobriety and her life. Three former clients said they wound up in psychiatric hospitals as a result. The fourth facility Cleggett opened, Lakeshore Retreat in Wakefield, where Clifford Bates disappeared, was a stately brick colonial with two kitchens, four fireplaces, a swimming pool, and an entryway flanked by graceful white columns.
Sober housing
- Another said she and other clients used to make a game of adding up Lakeshore’s revenue for the month — which they regularly calculated at over $90,000.
- Cleggett did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
- Sober housing funds through Project NORTH are managed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Alliance for Sober Housing and the Massachusetts Probation Service.
- Participants would also have access to trained addiction specialists (known as recovery navigators) who could help them find work, counseling, and other support services.
- The fourth facility Cleggett opened, Lakeshore Retreat in Wakefield, where Clifford Bates disappeared, was a stately brick colonial with two kitchens, four fireplaces, a swimming pool, and an entryway flanked by graceful white columns.
- 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.
When Clifford Bates, the despondent father of two, didn’t show up for the 8 a.m. Group meeting at Lakeshore on April 28, 2018, fellow what is alcoholism client Thomas Richardson and Bates’s roommate, Kevin, were worried. Both men separately said they approached staff and urged them to search thoroughly for Bates, because he had mental health issues and could be in trouble. No one knows how many sober homes have seen one death — or more. So when the 19-year-old died at Cleggett’s Weymouth home, there was no state analysis.
When a health insurer paid for housing, hospitalizations plummeted among high-risk drug users
If the Department of Public Health regulated sober homes the way it does licensed addiction treatment facilities, Cleggett would have been required to report the death to the state. The state would then have conducted an analysis of contributing factors, suggested changes if any were necessary, and checked back later to ensure compliance. In the 12 days Bates spent at Lakeshore, he was despondent. He barely showered or spoke during groups, said three people there with him. In his room with Kevin, he talked about his kids, how he wanted a relationship boston sober homes with them, how he thought nothing would work. One client, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bates was being taken off his insomnia medication by staff and was having trouble sleeping.
- Clients had their wallets, cellphones, and medications confiscated upon admission, and they were not allowed to leave without an escort.
- Three-quarters of participants were able to maintain sobriety while in the sober home program — far exceeding the typical rate for people in addiction recovery.
- 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.
- He barely showered or spoke during groups, said three people there with him.
Unwatched, a sober home business boomed. Then they found the bones
City officials were responding to a complaint from a client. It is not clear where, exactly, staff or police searched for Bates — if they checked the property, the small backyard where clients smoked, or the partially-fenced area behind the shed, feet from the pool. Wakefield police declined to comment, citing an open investigation. Two Lakeshore clients said that early that summer, they thought they smelled hot, foul garbage — but there was a dumpster at the top of the driveway.
A local sober housing program funded by health insurer helps people recover from addiction
Espinosa said he didn’t know why so many clients and their family members, some of whom liked Lakeshore, said in separate interviews that staff had told them to stop taking medication. A spokeswoman said the AG’s office has an active and ongoing investigation into the addiction treatment scams but declined to confirm or deny the targets of the probe. She encouraged anyone who believes that their rights are being violated in a sober home to contact the office. For Graney’s mother, who wakes up every morning and remembers all over again that her son is dead, it’s not enough. 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.
Project NORTH
And recognizing that relapse is a normal part of recovery, Maier tailored the program so that participants were allowed one failed drug test over their six-month stay. But at Lakeshore, most clients paid $3,000 a month, plus groceries. Six clients, who spoke to the Globe separately, said that at times there were up to around 30 people living in the house. Another said she and other clients used to make a game of adding up Lakeshore’s revenue for the month — which they regularly calculated at over $90,000. Espinosa, the sober home assistant director, disputed that Lakeshore was overcrowded, saying that at most he thought there were 24 people lodged there. The program also comes as public health officials and nonprofits are scrambling to find fresh ways to combat the twin crises of opioid-related overdoses and surging homelessness.
Evan Allen can be reached at Follow her on Twitter @evanmallen. Lakeshore’s rental lease in Wakefield was not renewed, and around November 2018, the Retreat operation moved to one of Cleggett’s other houses in Quincy, an elegant brick home on a quiet street. When the department sent a letter demanding a sprinkler system, an attorney cited Lakeshore’s protected status as a sober home and refused, offering to consider a new smoke detector system instead. Staff at Lakeshore could be cavalier with residents’ safety in other ways, too, clients said. The man ultimately relapsed, overdosed three times in 12 hours, and was involuntarily committed to BayRidge Hospital. Despite the high price tag, some people said the care they received at Lakeshore left them worse off than when they arrived.
Cleggett began advertising Lakeshore in late 2016 and appointed his mother, Elizabeth Cleggett, who had fought her own battle against addiction, to run it. Elizabeth Cleggett did not respond to requests for comment. Bates’s wife said she and their daughters always hoped that, with the right treatment, he would return to the person he was before he became addicted.
