Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Dana Place

Right before we went on vacation last week we were in the middle of taking over a program formerly known as “Dana Place.” It was a popular halfway house – 17 units- because it was also co-ed. Meaning, for the uninitiated, that both men and women lived at the facility. Not a lot of recovery gets done in houses with both men and women – but at least they’re not boring.

And like most acquisitions of the that size it took us over a year to buy it. There’s always a lot of paperwork in a transaction of that size.

Many of those in Dana management objected to us taking over because they had their special way of doing things.

But we’re not going to do things much differently than we do at our normal houses. We run them tight. We have strict rules and guidelines and expect everyone to adhere to them. And we don’t allow romantic relationships between clients – they interfere with recovery. That’s why a lot of addicts don’t like to go to our program.

There will be extra work for awhile. We’ll have to educate the clients that decide to stay. We’ll need more staff members. But none of us worry about such things. Whenever we need help - whether it’s people or money – they always show up right on time.

And they have for the past 25 years.