Carhart Neighbors Oppose Detox Center
Residents surrounding the proposed site for a drug and alcohol detoxification center in the Carhart neighborhood came out in full force with sharp words for the possible facility Monday night at a White Plains Common Council meeting.
One resident to speak, Ira Wunder, compared it to “putting a nuclear reactor” in the residential area. It was just the first of plenty of complaints throughout the night.
The center, Sunrise Detox, bought the former Nathan Miller Center for Nursing Care last year and is seeking a special permit to renovate the building into a detox center that would hold between 31 to 33 beds.
Located at Dekalb and Carhart avenues, the facility would be renovated to a smaller square footage (19,100 sq. ft.) and would house people for 5.7 days looking for treatment and counseling, the application said. The residential zone in which the property is located allows a multiple unit community residence with a special permit.
Sunrise has three other facilities, with the closest one located in Sterling, New Jersey, where clients pay $900 to $1,300 per day to stay. Admission is voluntary, clients can sign themselves in and out, but Sunrise is responsible for transporting them to and from their homes.
Sunrise CEO Linda Burns spoke on behalf of the facility and vowed that the facility is safe and controlled.
“To our knowledge no patient or staff member has ever harmed anyone in the outside community while under our care,” Burns said.
What Burns presented didn’t sway the packed house of residents, many with shirts or button pins that had a red “X” mark over the word “Detox.”
Of the more than 20 citizens that spoke during the public hearing, not a single one showed anything but staunch opposition for Sunrise’s desired arrival in White Plains. While many citizens who spoke stated they had no problem with a detox center to help drug or alcohol addiction, they made it clear they didn’t want the center in their neighborhood.
One speaker, criminologist Frank Pezzela is an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and gave a report to White Plains Mayor Tom Roach and the Council challenging the safety of the Sunrise facilities in Sterling, New Jersey and Lake Worth, Florida
One part of the report cited the arrest of a Sunrise Detox counselor accused of sexual assault and police calls to the other Sunrise facilities.
“Do you really want to open this Pandora’s Box,” Pezzella asked the Council. “Because if you approve their application, they’re in and potential criminal activity is likely to get worse.”
Resident Geraldine Stampf said that she had a petition opposing the detox center that has risen to almost 1,000 signatures over the past two months. Another resident, Claudia Murphy said she didn’t think White Plains should be the “test case” for a facility like this located in a densely residential area and she fears for the safety of the children in the neighborhood, considering the 10school bus stops in the area. One bus stop is located directly in front of the building.
“At one point, and I think it’s guaranteed that the paths of the children and the paths of the patients being dropped off at Sunrise will cross,” she said.
Neighbor Jermaine Nelson said he had nieces and nephews that play in the backyard; they often have to go into the former nursing home’s property to collect whatever they kicked or threw over the fence, which makes him concerned.
“Before I was just concerned that Sunrise was opening in my neighborhood. After hearing the rap sheet today…I am absolutely terrified for my family,” Nelson said. “This cannot happen.”
Other speakers contended that because patients staying at the detox center would be there for an average stay of 5.7 days, it did not qualify as a community residence. “These patients would be transients, not actual members of the community,” one speaker said.
The council adjourned the hearing until the public meeting on Nov. 5.
