An addiction rehabilitation house in a Havertown neighborhood has ceased operations after neighbors mounted a protest against a zoning request to expand the service from three residents to nine, writes Jesse Bunch for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Savage Sisters, a Philadelphia-based recovery home operator, rents a home on Tenby Road to offer services to three residents struggling with addiction but had hoped to increase its bed capacity at the home to nine residents.
The nonprofit appealed to the Haverford Township Zoning Hearing Board this spring for a variance from a code that limits unrelated residents at a home to three.
The zoning meetings drew neighbors who strongly opposed any expansion, with concerns of possible thefts and quality-of-life issues they believed could occur.
This month, Savage Sisters pulled out of the proposal and decided to leave the area entirely. Its three Havertown residents will now live at a home in South Philadelphia.
“It’s traumatizing enough to come into early recovery — you feel very isolated and afraid — so to do that in a community where people are very aggressively discriminating against you, I wouldn’t feel safe with that,” said Sarah Laurel, executive director of Savage Sisters.
See how Savage Sisters is also dealing with a situation in Upper Darby in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
