“Abstinence,” Not Methadone, Set For CVS Site

The leaders of a Danbury-based addiction-treatment nonprofit promised to keep preaching abstinence — and not to branch out into prescribing methadone — as they prepare to move their local outpatient clinic into the former CVS site at Whalley Avenue and Orchard Street.

Top officials at the Midwestern Connecticut Council of Alcoholism, or MCCA, made that commitment to a dozen Dwight, Edgewood, Dixwell and Beaver Hills community leaders Monday night during a public meeting held in Amistad Academy’s gymnasium at 130 Edgewood Ave.

The meeting took place roughly a month after MCCA purchased the 1.15-acre shuttered former pharmacy site at 215 Whalley Ave. for $2.5 million.

That sale, as first reported by the New Haven Independent, caught neighbors and city officials by surprise, and led to a host of questions about how exactly this drug rehab nonprofit plans to use the prominent corner commercial property.

Thus Monday’s community meeting, which was organized by Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills (WEB) Community Management Team Chair Rebecca Cramer in partnership with area alders and Dixwell and Dwight Community Management Team leaders. The meeting gave MCCA’s directors an opportunity to explain to the public why they bought the former CVS site.

Time and again over the course of the meeting, MCCA’s leadership said that their nonprofit prioritizes an ​“abstinence-based model” of therapy. They said they do not and will not prescribe medication-assisted treatment like methadone at the New Haven site for patients struggling with opioid addictions.

What would stop this former CVS site from becoming something akin to the APT Foundation clinic on Congress Avenue? asked Greater Dwight Development Corporation Executive Director Linda Townsend Maier.

She described the public sidewalks and streets surrounding that Hill clinic as hosting drug users and sellers all day, and as having become a hotspot for crime because of that activity.

“The APT Foundation is a methadone maintenance program, which is totally different,” MCCA President and CEO John D’Eramo replied. ​“We’re an abstinence-based model and program. … That’s not the model we have. We’re never going to be methadone providers.”

"We're Not Looking To Grow"

D’Eramo kicked off Monday’s meeting by all but apologizing to the Whalley-area neighbors before him. ​“We didn’t intend to disrupt anyone’s lives” by buying the former CVS site, he said. 

He said that MCCA was founded in 1972, and has been operating out of a rented 10,000 square-foot, third-floor medical office space at 419 Whalley Ave. since January 2013.

While the nonprofit offers a ​“full continuum of care for addiction and behavioral health” at its seven offices across Connecticut, he said, the current New Haven out-patient clinic provides only the following services: 

• In-person, English- and Spanish-language ​“talk therapy” for patients struggling with a range of drug addictions; 

• ​“Impaired driver education classes” for people who have been arrested for driving under the influence; 

• ​“Medication management” as overseen by a nurse practitioner. ​“We do not dispense any medications out of the facility,” he clarified. ​“It’s like going to a doctor’s office” and having a doctor call in a medication prescription in to a pharmacy;

• Other talk-based therapy programs focused on ​“gambling treatment, anger management, and relapse and prevention.”

The current New Haven office is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays. ​“We’re not open on the weekend,” D’Eramo said.

In response to questions from Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton and Dwight Alder Frank Douglass, D’Eramo and MCCA Vice President of Operations Steve Palma said that most of New Haven’s MCCA patients receive treatment for an average of four to five months.

So. Why purchase the former CVS site?

D’Eramo said MCCA bought 215 Whalley Ave. simply because its current at 419 Whalley Ave. building ​“is in real disrepair.” He said that building has ​“bathrooms that leak from floor to floor,” ​“bad air-conditioning,” and a busted elevator that means that people who have difficulty climbing stairs can’t receive treatment at that site. 

He said that MCCA decided that ​“the only way we were gonna fix these problems is to buy a building and become our own landlord.” He said the former CVS site was particularly attractive because of its on-site parking spaces, and because of how close it is to where MCCA has operated for the past decade.

What percentage of patients at MCCA’s current New Haven clinic are from New Haven? Dwight Community Management Team Chair Florita Gillespie asked.

“At least 90 percent,” D’Eramo replied. 

And how many patients visit the site every day? Gillespie asked.

D’Eramo, Palma, and MCCA Clinical Director Scott Nelson said that the current New Haven clinic has a patient roster of roughly 300 people.

Palma said that around 120 of those patients are in a more intensive treatment program that has them come three days a week, while the remaining 180 come once per week.

He said that between 75 and 100 patients visit the site each day.

And how will those numbers change after MCCA moves from its current rented home at 419 Whalley to the former CVS site? Townsend Maier asked.

D’Eramo said that those numbers actually shouldn’t change at all.

“We’re just moving the clinic” as it currently exists at 419 Whalley, he said. That rented site covers 10,000 square feet of medical office space. This future site will also have roughly 10,000 square feet.

“The clinic will remain the same size,” he said. MCCA does not plan on increasing its number of local staff or local patients. ​“We’re not looking to grow.”

So what exactly is the advantage of spending well over $3 million on buying and fixing up a new site? Townsend Maier asked.

Because the current rented location at 419 Whalley ​“is in such disrepair,” D’Eramo said.

“We’re meeting the needs of the community” now, he continued. So there’s no need to expand MCCA’s current local services.

Iman Hameen described MCCA’s purchase of and planned move to the former CVS site as a ​“downgrade” for the neighborhood since school children who walk up and down the block on a regular basis will now see a drug rehab center anchoring the block. ​“I don’t think an alcohol treatment center on a main thoroughfare beautifies the neighborhood,” she said.

D’Eramo said that MCCA will invest between $1.5 million and $2 million in making the site look much better than it does today. Those improvements will include ​“a complete interior buildout,” landscaping, exterior upgrades to the building, and a cleanup and restriping of the parking lot. ​“We won’t be moving in immediately,” he added. 

He said he doesn’t have a projected timeline for when MCCA will be moving into the former CVS site. Local attorney Carolyn Kone said that the clinic will likely need site plan approval from the City Plan Commission before it can move into 215 Whalley Ave. However, she noted, it will not need zoning relief to put a treatment center at that site, since that use is permitted as of right at that location.

“We want to be a part of the neighborhood,” D’Eramo said. In fact, he added, ​“we are a part of the neighborhood,” because MCCA has been renting clinic space at 419 Whalley for a decade. Given that MCCA’s future new home at 215 Whalley won’t be open on the weekends and will have ​“large group rooms,” he said he’d stay in touch with neighborhood leaders about how best to open this space for public use in the future.