Pubdate: Mon, 25 Feb 2008
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Copyright: 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact:  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408
Author: Levi Pulkkinen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

TREATMENT CENTER BEING SUED BY RECOVERING DRUG ADDICTS

Two Say They Were Forced To Work For No Pay

They came to Seattle Drug and Narcotic Center Inc.  looking for help
kicking heroin addictions, and were  put to work.

Six days a week, they moved and sorted paper at  SeaDruNar Recycling
LLC, a for-profit recycling plant  owned by the treatment center. They
exhausted  themselves week after week without a wage, keeping the
multimillion-dollar operation going one pallet of paper  at a time.

SeaDruNar managers called the program "work therapy"  aimed at
teaching ex-addicts how to work in the sober  world. Some former
clients take a different view.

"It's like slavery," said David Schodron, who has  joined another
former SeaDruNar patient in a lawsuit  against the treatment center.
"You either worked or you  went back to where you came from."

Schodron, 52, and co-plaintiff Leann Lafley said they  were forced to
work either at the plant or cleaning the  treatment center where both
lived, or risk prison time  for drug offenses. They say they're
entitled to back  wages that were denied to them and other patients
forced to work at the plant. They are waiting to hear  if the state
Supreme Court will take the case.

Their suit has received a frosty reception in the state  courts; it
was tossed out by a King County Superior  Court judge, then by an
Appeals Court three-judge  panel. The judges agreed with SeaDruNar's
founder that  patients volunteer their labor at the plant by choosing
the treatment center.

In court documents, Nan Busby, a 73-year-old former  addict, said she
was just three years out of prison in  1968 when she founded SeaDruNar
in a Capitol Hill  boarding house. She'd started the house with
$18,000  from The Boeing Co. and the help of community leaders
interested in fighting the growing heroin problem in  the city.

"The only training any of us had was we were  ex-addicts," said Busby
during a 2004 deposition. Busby  said the program was based on
"addict-to-addict"  mentoring, a system the center continues to use
while  employing licensed counselors.

Supporters see Busby as a tireless advocate who has  helped thousands
of addicts and devoted her life to  treatment. Her program has
received the backing of  several influential Seattle-area leaders,
including  former King County Superior Court Judge John Darrah and
Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman, both of whom  serve on the
SeaDruNar board.

Busby's enterprise grew steadily until the late 1970s,  when state and
federal drug treatment dollars grew  scarce. She and the SeaDruNar
board were looking for  solutions to the center's money woes when they
decided  to get into the recycling business.

The new three-man operation was headed by Richard  Busby, a former
SeaDruNar patient who married Nan after  completing the program. In
statements to the court,  Richard Busby said he and the other men
would drive  around Seattle in a van, stopping to dig through trash
bins in search of scrap paper to resell.

The business grew and brought in money for SeaDruNar's  expansion. The
clinic began acquiring properties around  the city and, in 1995 bought
the plot of land in the  Georgetown neighborhood where SeaDruNar
Recycling's  46,000-square-foot plant now stands.

Nan Busby incorporated the recycling center as a  for-profit company
in 2000, listing herself as  executive director of both the recycling
business and  treatment center in tax documents. Richard Busby
directs the recycling plant, where the couple's  daughter, Sheri
Healey, is employed as a manager.

About two dozen of the treatment center's roughly 100  clients work at
the plant alongside 15 paid workers,  most of whom are former
SeaDruNar clients, Richard  Busby said in a 2004 deposition. A paid
crew also works  an evening shift at the plant.

Those working at the recycling center are bused from  the SeaDruNar
in-patient treatment center, where they  undergo therapy or have free
time when not at work.  They're allowed limited contact with the
outside world  in the later phases of treatment, but are otherwise
isolated.

Though both were destitute when they became involved  with SeaDruNar,
the treatment business brought wealth  to the Busbys.

According to tax documents filed for the non-profit  treatment
program, Nan Busby is paid $112,000 a year  while her husband earns
$100,000 annually managing the  recycling business. The couple now own
a $767,000  waterfront home in Des Moines.

The recycling plant brought in $3.3 million in 2006,  covering about
74 percent of the program's $4.5 million  cost. The rest of the money
came from state and federal  sources, primarily a program designed to
support drug  addicts who are unable to work. Most of the clients are
also registered to receive food stamps after arriving  at the center;
according to court documents. SeaDruNar  pools food assistance to feed
its clients.

While other paper recyclers use expensive optical  scanning to sort
paper, SeaDruNar continue to sort  paper by hand. That savings
combined with access to a  large pool of unpaid labor has allowed
SeaDruNar to  actually buy waste from companies when its competitors
demand payment for pickup.

The labor-intensive operation has seen its share of  accidents,
including two deaths in the past decade.

In 2000, paper sorter Brandi LaValla was pulled into an  exposed
conveyor belt while doing maintenance on the  machine. Schodron, who'd
grown close to LaValla while  both were in treatment, watched the
31-year-old woman  as she was crushed to death.

SeaDruNar lost another worker last June, when longtime  paid employee
John Colombini was crushed to death under  a lift. The state
Department of Labor and Industries  fined SeaDruNar $900 for safety
problems found in  inspections following the 46-year-old's death.

Another client was seriously injured two months later  when she fell
15 feet after stepping into a hole at the  recycling plant. She filed
a lawsuit last year  demanding damages.

Schodron said he had been doing well in treatment until  the October
day that LaValla died. He'd come to  SeaDruNar in an effort to avoid a
prison sentence after  being arrested in a heroin sting in Montana,
and had  been using the drug regularly.

Any progress he'd made was erased by LaValla's death.  Schodron fell
apart, landed in Harborview Medical  Center's psychiatric wing, then
refused to return to  SeaDruNar after being released.

He expected to face jail after leaving the program.  Instead, he found
the charges against him had been  dropped two months earlier and, he
said, the SeaDruNar  staff never told him he was out of legal jeopardy.

A former union carpenter and shop steward, Schodron  said he's now
unable to hold down a job because of the  psychological damage done to
him by seeing LaValla die.  He's currently sober and living in New
York City, but  believes he's owed payment for the work he did at
SeaDruNar.

"People deserve something coming out," he said. "We got  absolutely
nada from it. ... What kind of job training  do you get out of sorting
paper?"

Joseph Lawrence, Jr., the Seattle attorney representing  the Busbys
and SeaDruNar, said the program is designed  to help addicts learn to
work again while filling the  time.

"All of those things are designed as part of a  treatment plan,
basically to get them back in work  shape," Lawrence said. "A lot of
these people aren't  used to getting up every morning and going to
work."

Lawrence said the work program's "ultimate goal is to  get these
people better," not provide funding for the  program, which is
provided free of charge to most  clients.

Gene Bolin, the attorney representing Lafley and  Schodron, disputes
SeaDruNar's claim and has argued  that his clients should have been
paid in accordance  with the state minimum-wage rules. The sole
purpose of  the recycling program, Bolin contends, is to provide
revenue for the treatment program.

Lafley, the former construction worker and recovering  heroin addict,
said she found nothing therapeutic about  paper sorting.

Like Schodron, Lafley left the program early after  breaking her wrist
on the job in 2002. Unlike him, her  legal trouble hadn't
disappeared.

Lafley ended up in a federal prison for three years on  drug charges,
and has since returned to the Flathead  Reservation in Montana where
she was raised. She said  she's now clean, sober and employed.

In an interview, Lafley said SeaDruNar clients deserve  to be paid for
their labor.

"You're working for free, and it doesn't seem right,"  she said. "We
had to give 100 percent when we're in  there. They could give a little."
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MAP posted-by: Steve Heath