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Recovery in the News
Building better lives
Recovery program involves trade instruction taught by recovering addicts
Carole Sharwarko
February 22, 2010
Sun Times Media
Sometimes an idea is so simple and perfect, you can't imagine why no one's thought of it before. But even the best idea needs a champion, a walking embodiment of its potential.
At Affordable Group Services, every man who stays out of the bottle and off the pipe is that champion. Each man who chooses an honest day's work over a life choked by addiction personifies a concept conceived in 2003.
That year, John Dunleavy and a group of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts formed AGS, based in Hazel Crest. Something of an anomaly, it's a for-profit business and a nonprofit organization that operate seamlessly together to change lives in the Southland.
Once addicts finally reach sustained sobriety, most already have moved through many programs and halfway houses. Some people try to get clean for years before sobriety sticks.
In 2003, Chicago Ridge resident John Dunleavy discussed with some fellow recovering addicts their previous failures to stay sober, and the failures of the programs that tried to help them.
"At the same time, we started a construction company," Dunleavy said. "So we tried to think of a way we could use the company to start our own program."
He and Affordable Group Services' other founders conceived a system in which a for-profit company employs recovering addicts, and uses its proceeds to support them in recovery.
How it works
Men who enter the AGS program - and it's only men right now - move into one of six recovery houses in the Southland - in Harvey, Markham, Homewood and on Chicago's South Side.
They must be sober, whether it's for one day or one year. AGS trains them in a trade at its warehouse in Hazel Crest, which doubles as a social center with a pool table and common room.
Men can learn painting, hanging drywall, roofing, carpentry and basic car maintenance, among other trades. A few years ago, AGS bought a small auto mechanic shop across from its warehouse, and trains and employs guys to do oil changes and other basic car maintenance for the general public.
In the huge warehouse, they practice running a forklift and warehousing items. They recently started a carpet installation business.
"We want to expand our training into basic HVAC and trades like electrician's and plumber's work," Dunleavy said.
For those who need it, Matt Morgan tea ches things such as basic math, how to fill out a job application and other life skills. Morgan, of Oak Lawn, also is a recovering addict, like most everyone else who leads the program.
"We know we're onto something here that can lead to a lot of good things," Morgan said. "That's what keeps me coming back here, knowing we help people."
Who works it
AGS contracts with companies that buy foreclosed homes to fix them up and resell them. The companies need crews to rehab the homes, and Dunleavy said the men in recovery become those crews. In exchange, they receive some pay from AGS, along with a home, food and support - a boost that can help them restart their lives.
The group works with almost no government dollars. The money it makes from rehabbing homes is funneled directly to funding the recovery program. Even Dunleavy and the rest of the leadership get paid a modest wage. After having their basic living expenses covered, they make about $100 a week, he said. But Dunleavy said he has another reason for running the program.
"If I don't do it, I'll die," he said, believing that without this higher purpose he would sink back into addiction.
Since all of AGS's owners are recovering addicts, they have seen the failures of other recovery homes and programs, Dunleavy said.
First, unlike other programs, AGS clients face no time limit to either find a job or lose their spot in the recovery home.
"Most recovery houses provide housing and a bed," said Dunleavy, who is one of the group's 15 founders. "Then they give you 30 to 60 days to find a job, or you're out. Here, you don't have to worry about finding a job or getting kicked out. It gives them time to focus on their recovery."
Other programs offer job training, Dunleavy said, but neglect to address the real-life obstacles faced by recovering addicts when they enter the job world.
"A lot of other training programs, they train you in carpentry or computers, and they say they'll place you in a job," he said. "Then they place you at McDonald's. We're going to put them in real jobs."
In AGS, not only can the men learn a trade that will take them to meaningful, long-term employment, they restart their work life in a supportive environment. All their coworkers struggle with addiction. They understand what one another are going through.
After working together all day, residents of the recovery homes have meetings most nights to discuss their disease and strategies for staying sober.
Why it works
A job does more than put a little cash in their pockets, said Hall Hanes, executive director of AGS' recovery houses. Hanes has worked with AGS for three years, and has been in the field of substance abuse recovery for about 30 years. He also works for the South Suburban Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.
He said having a job can kick-start a positive life change for someone trying to stay sober.
"You have to be busy. You have to work. You have to have something to do," Hanes said. "It's also about getting structure in your life. It's important to have a sense of purpose, self-esteem, paying your own way."
Hanes said part of the reason AGS works so well is that it's run by people in recovery. While many drug and alcohol recovery programs are run by people with degrees, who lack life experience with substance abuse, AGS is run entirely by people who have battled addiction.
Having an empathetic mentor gives recovering addicts someone they can trust, said Peter Palanca, who has worked in the substance abuse treatment field for about 30 years.
Palanca is executive vice president of Treatment Alternatives for Safe Comm unities, an agency that connects people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction with services that help them get their lives back in order.
"It's important the people delivering these services score high on the genuineness scale," he said. "People pick up on that, and they'll commit to working harder because of it."
When it comes down to living sober day to day - with all the recovery program mottos and professional opinions - it's the real people with AGS who seem to be making the difference.
"We're the only ones who aren't full of crap," AGS managing director of construction Warren Blazina said .
UNDER THE RADAR
Though AGS has been around since 2003, it's still not well known in the drug and alcohol recovery world. Peter Palanca, a veteran of the field, was not aware of the group until the SouthtownStar contacted him about it.
"What they're doing is great," Palanca said when he learned about AGS. "The three biggest things for people coming out of a (recovery) institution or prison are employment, housing and recovery. They're addressing all those issues.
AGS connects with short-term halfway houses in the Chicago area; places that can refer clients who are leaving to AGS. This type of direction can be sobriety-saving, even lifesaving to someone so newly clean.
"Many times, (recovering addicts) return to gang-infested areas where the likelihood of relapse goes up greatly," Palanca said. "They're not around people in recovery, and they're not motivated to make changes."
TWO YEARS TO A NEW LIFE
The construction arm of AGS is hired by companies that buy foreclosed homes to fix them up, using the profits to fund its recovery program.
Late last year, AGS proposed a project - one even larger than what it's doing now - to Coseo Properties, a San Diego-based company it contracts with to fix up foreclosures.
"We convinced them to buy 1,000 homes in one area code," John Dunleavy, one of AGS' founders, said. "For two years, the guys will work on houses they can eventually purchase."
A group of 10 men are in the program and will work for Coseo Properties, which has so far bought 78 homes, through a staffing agency. Much of their salary will be put in a deferred compensation account, which they can't touch until the end of the two-year program.
As the rehabbed homes become livable, they will be rented to people with Section 8 vouchers. Theoretically, Dunleavy said, the improvements will lift property values in the depressed South Side community where the homes are located.
He said participants are far along in their addiction recovery, and this will help them get their financial life back in order.
"We'll help them build credit, and get them a $50,000 life insurance policy," Dunleavy said.
Eventually, he'd like to see 20 men a month enter the program. If all goes as planned, Dunleavy thinks it will be a boon not only for its participants, but for the housing market and the job market.
"If this thing takes off, over the next two to three years, we will have over 300 jobs available," he said.