![]()
![LevittownPA]()
Despite the dreary weather, residents of Bristol Township came out in large numbers last Thursday to speak once again about the recovery homes which have begun filling township streets.
The council majority, which dismissed Vice President Amber Longhitano’s motion for a moratorium on all recovery homes in late October, have joined together with the council minority members that sought to approve the moratorium, Murray Bailey, John Monahan, and Longhitano, in hosting a town hall style meeting this Wednesday, November 25 to further discuss the homes and the issues they’ve been causing throughout the municipality. The meeting will be held in the James Gallagher Community Center starting at 7 p.m.
Council President Craig Bowen noted in a recent remark to residents that Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, State Representatives Tina Davis and John Galloway, and the Bucks County Commissioners have all been invited to the meeting.
“Our legislative delegations need to hear first-hand what these commercial and institutional operations are doing to every neighborhood in Bristol Township,” said Bowen. “Bristol Township has more recovery houses and group homes than the rest of Bucks County combined; if the federal government can mandate fair share requirements for low-income housing, why can’t they do the same thing with recovery houses?”
While residents have called the Thanksgiving eve meeting deliberate to discourage resident attendance, or poor planning on behalf of council, Councilman Troy Brennan, once vice president himself, said the meeting was scheduled the day before the holiday on purpose, not allowing officials to cancel due to other government obligations.
“This meeting was jumped into without contacting all pertinent people. That does not only include legislators that were invited, but the secretary of drug and alcohol, the state policy committee, law enforcement, and all recovery and town watch leaders,” said Longhitano. “On the most traveled day of the year and on the eve of our biggest family holiday, I do wonder who will be able to attend and what will be achieved. It is way too important of an issue to schedule it at such an inappropriate time.”
Longhitano, is hopeful however, that something positive will come from the meeting. Calling it a time to “at least to educate people on the much needed legislation to help balance the township”.
Council did take some action Thursday in preparation for it’s town hall. Solicitor Randy Flager, who was absent at Thursday’s meeting, prepared a resolution asking all surrounding and neighboring municipalities to start accepting their “fair share” of recovery homes. The resolution, however, cannot be binding or forceful in making other municipalities take the impending recovery houses off of Bristol Township’s hands. In the end, the council adopted the resolution.
While neighboring Falls Township had plans to receive their second recovery home by summer, and Middletown Township and Bristol Borough have a dozen or so, Bristol Township had 89 registered homes spread out among 17 square miles by September. Longhitano, who has been researching and investigating the recovery house community within the township for several years, has estimated that just as many unregistered recovery homes, or ‘rogue homes’ also exist within the municipality’s borders.
While the township has battled an influx of recovery homes during the last several years, no state or local legislation has been instituted to regulate the homes, either within the home for the resident’s safety, or within the community, in regards to density and distance requirements, for the neighbor’s safety.
Tom Devlin, 28, bought a home in the township just two years ago, and as a new dad, is scared that his daughter will grow up so close to unregulated rogue homes. “I can’t have a recovery home take my property value,” said Devlin, whose dumped over $35,000 into renovating his Bristol Township rancher. “If [the moratorium] doesn’t happen, I’m gonna be out. You don’t want young families like mine to move out.”
According to Brennan, the township has continued to make the area an enticing place for recovery home owners to buy, citing the township’s high school taxes, low property values, and low dollar per square foot. Brennan said a Jubilee in Bristol Township sells accompanied with taxes that are nearly double that of Middletown Township’s Levittown. “Taxes are $3,500 in Cobalt Ridge, while taxes are $6,211 in Plumbridge,” said Brennan.
For long-time resident Yolanda Devilla, who raised her son in the township, the nearby rogue homes are threatening her security. “When my son heard there was one in front of my house and one in back he told me, ‘Mom, you have to leave’.”
The township’s residents, according to Flager, have long-complained about the recovery homes, for at least two decades; but perhaps what residents are complaining about even more, is a lack of recovery within the recovery homes that already exist.
“There’s no recovery going on there,” said Goldenridge resident Debbie Fleming. “The success rate is around five percent.”
While the need for recovery from substance abuse certainly exists within a country that’s become dependent on prescription medication, the need may exist even more so right at home in Bucks County, where more young men aged 19 to 25 lose their life to drug overdoses each year than any other place in the nation, according to a study released Thursday by the Trust for America’s Health. Bucks County overdose rates have now surpassed Philadelphia’s, by more than triple.
The post Bristol Twp. Prepares For Town Hall Meeting About Recovery Homes appeared first on LevittownNow.com.
