Paul Bass Photo
Retreat Behavioral Health on the Boulevard.
McFadden Photo
Facility boss Jarel Gallman: "Some financial struggles" came to light.
One of the city’s largest in-patient drug-rehab facilities abruptly closed its doors this weekend, with questions lingering about why and what comes next for its employees and recovering substance abusers.
The closing took place at the 80-bed Retreat Behavioral Health at 915 Ella Grasso Blvd., which also runs an outpatient program. It’s part of a three-state chain of for-profit centers.
Patients were transferred from the New Haven facility on Friday and Saturday following the death of Retreat CEO Peter Schorr, according to two people familiar with the New Haven situation. Retreat announced Schorr’s death Saturday on its Facebook page.
“No one got paid on Friday” on the regular biweekly payday, said one employee, who asked to remain anonymous. “Nobody knows who’s in charge. There’s no communication.”
A spokesperson for Mayor Justin Elicker said the administration was not aware of the closing or what happened to the patients.
The facility’s executive director, Jarel Gallman, said he made the decision Friday to close the facility following Schorr’s death.
“I made the choice to safely discharge patients due to the loss of him. There have been presented Friday some financial struggles which I can’t speak to” at the moment, Gallman told the Independent Sunday. He confirmed that staff had not been paid.
He said between 30 and 40 residential patients were at the facility at the time. Working with the state Department of Public Health (DPH), the facility was able to find places for all of them, along with discharge plans, Gallman said: Some went to other long-term facilities, some to outpatient facilities, some home, depending on their needs.
“They have been part of the process,” Gallman said of DPH. DPH spokesperson Chris Boyle confirmed the agency was onsite and involved.
The center’s Long Wharf outpatient treatment center will continue operating Monday, Gallman said.
“We are still licensed. We are planning once we get some answers and some stability within the company from a national standpoint, we are ready to” resume treatment at the Boulevard facility as well, he said. “Since our inception, even through Covid, we’ve treated thousands of patients in a short four years. Peter Schorr is no longer with us, bless his family. He was a visionary.”
Hopes were high for the facility at its January 2020 ribbon-cutting at the former nursing home site on the Boulevard. The 80 beds were reserved for a mix of detox and longer-term in-patients. The chain’s other in-patient and outpatient facilities are in Pennsylvania and Florida; no one could be reached for comment at the other two in-patient facilities, in Lancaster County, Penn., and Palm Beach County, Florida.
Click here to watch an interview with New Haven facility officials on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program at the time of the 2020 opening.
A rear patio at the center on Sunday.