They were promised housing and drug treatment. Now they are facing eviction.
Lexington officials and nonprofits are scrambling to find housing and services for more than two dozen people in a sober living program facing eviction after a provider that has had problems in another state quit paying rent on those apartments.
More than 30 people in apartments at Tates Creek Crossing apartment complex received notices the first week of February saying the rent had not been paid and eviction was imminent.
On Thursday, the city’s homeless services, Catholic Action Center, Community Action Council and other providers were scheduled to meet with those residents to find placement before the first of March, when eviction is likely.
“We are trying to bring the community together so we can provide these individuals what they need so they don’t go back into homelessness and can maintain their sobriety in a responsible way ,” said Polly Ruddick, director of the city’s Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention. “Based on the information we were getting, it sounded like we were going to be getting a lot of people coming back into homelessness.”
Ruddick said the providers were going to do assessments to determine the best placement options for the people in the apartments. Organizers say they met with 36 people Thursday.
A group called United Youth Care Foundation rented the 15 apartments but has not paid the rent on those apartments for two months, residents said. It’s not clear how long United Youth Care Foundation has leased the apartments. Many residents said they had been there for more than four months.
Residents in the program said they attended treatment through a different provider — Infinite Community Achievement in Lexington. But their rent was paid by United Youth Care Foundation.
According to June 2019 story in the Triad City Beat in Greensboro, N.C., United Youth Care Foundation paid for the housing for sober living residents in a similar program in North Carolina. The residents in that program received treatment through a different group, United Youth Care Services. The two groups have the same registered agent.
Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor and disabled, was billed for that treatment.
In September 2019, the North Carolina Division of Health Service Regulation, which oversees health care providers in North Carolina, said it was fining United Youth Care Services, barring it from accepting new clients and said it was going to revoke its license.
The 60-page report found that United Youth Care Services recruited clients with the lure of free housing “but only on the condition that their Medicaid could be billed.”
United Youth Care Services denied the allegations and told the Greensboro News & Record in September 2019 that it was going to fight the revocation of its license.
Devarres Alexander, of Infinite Community Achievement, said there was no “official partnership” between United Youth Care Foundation and Infinite Community Achievement. United Youth Care Foundation had approached them about taking over treatment for people in the apartments several months ago after another provider backed out.
“They were allowed to go to any provider but they had to provide documentation that they were going,” Alexander said of residents there. “Some did not.”
Alexander said they cut off ties with United Youth Care Foundation several weeks ago after the issues with the provider in North Carolina surfaced, he said.
“We quit contributing to the foundation.”Alexander said.
When asked what that meant, Alexander said he meant that they were no longer working with the foundation. Calls to a phone number listed for United Youth Care Foundation in North Carolina were not immediately returned.
“We have no ties to United Youth Care Foundation,” Alexander said. “This was not a money-making scheme.”
Alexander said Infinite Community Achievement is working with the people still living at the apartments to find new sober living housing. Not all are Infinite Community Achievement patients, he said. Originally there were 54 people living in the apartments.
“Some have already been placed,” Alexander said.
Residents say many have left on their own.
One of the people who was in the program overdosed on Sunday, Feb. 9, just two days after residents received notice that eviction proceedings were imminent, several people in the program said.
The man struggled with depression, several residents said. When he got the eviction notice, he spiraled downward.
“He was supposed to be going into treatment,” said William Hash, who lives at Tates Creek Crossing. Hash told managers of the sober living program the man was using. “They told me he was going into treatment. Instead, they just moved him to a different apartment in a different part of the complex.”
Hash and others in the program said they were frequently told there were “healthy relapses.”
There is no such thing, said Robert Carter, another program participant.
“A relapse is a relapse,” Carter said.
“They just wanted people to get high so they could continue to make money off of them,” Hash said.
Alexander said that’s not true. Infinite Community Achievement frequently treated people who did not have insurance.
Robert Carter and his wife Brandi Carter said they had been told that they had completed the program.
“But we can’t get the certificates to show we have,” Brandi Carter said. Brandi Carter said after she appeared on WKYT, which first reported the story, she was terminated from her job after her employers found out she was in recovery.
The Carters think they have been able to find a house to rent and are going to find outpatient treatment through another provider. Hash said he and his fiance have been able to find an apartment through her treatment provider. But other people in the program are still in a fragile part of their recovery. They need more help, they said.
Ruddick said this isn’t the first time a provider has promised sober living apartments and treatment and then gone belly up. Last year, another provider did not pay the rent for apartments on Regency Road and the people in that program were evicted from those apartments.
“In that case, it was worse. The leases were in the residents’ name,” Ruddick said.
“These people already have barriers in terms of housing and now they had an an eviction on their record,” Ruddick said.
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 12:19 PM.
