NASHUA, NH – On May 14, Nashua’s Zoning Board approved an appeal of a previous administrative decision that issued a building permit for 16 Archery Lane to function as a sober living home after an influx of testimony from neighbors who were also against the home.
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“A rooming house with a dozen or 18 people is not appropriate on Archery Lane,” said Tim Bosch who appealed the Zoning Board’s decision. “It’s not appropriate with little children in the area. It is going to damage it. It is a safe, wonderful, suburban residential neighborhood.”
While in smaller numbers, some did speak against the appeal. One such person was Kailah Carroll – owner of Lotus House Sober Living and the proposed manager of the sober home on Archery Lane – who said that much of the opposition to the recovery house was due to misinformation and stigma.
After being denied a rehearing, NewLife NH has filed a lawsuit against the city of Nashua on the basis of violating The Fair Housing Act.
“Being there was really devastating [and] very emotional for me personally as a woman in long-term sobriety,” Carroll said. “With the love I have for these woman [at Lotus House] and watching them fight every day for their lives; this is serious, it’s life or death, and being able to see them come in, in pain and hopeless, and then watching them blossom into something beautiful, to have people like basically completely obliterate that, it’s devastating.”
Saving herself through helping others
By age 14, Carroll was struggling with addiction and had run away from home to escape a dysfunctional family life.
“When I hit my rock bottom, I was on heroin, doing lots of other things, [and] I put myself in a position where my disease just completely ran my life,” she said. “I was emotionally bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, engaging in behaviors I’m definitely not proud of, and I carried a lot of shame around. I just knew that I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to surrender and I wanted to give it another try, and luckily gathering all the seeds that were planted throughout my relapses, through my falls, I had an idea of what I needed to do.”
After going through detox, treatment and getting a sponsor, Carroll began sponsoring another woman, six months into her own sobriety.
“I just fell in love with it. Helping women was drilled into my head, like this is what you do, you go out, you establish relationship with God and you go help people you do God’s work you help his children and that really resonated with me I took it very seriously and it was the only time that I had been able to achieve longer sobriety,” Carroll said. “It solidified my passion of helping women and wanting to inspire women to do the same thing.”
Lotus House Sober Living
Five years ago, Carroll opened Lotus House Sober Living to give women a safe space to go after treatment for their addiction.
Lotus House moved into its current location at 29 Temple St. last July. With 8,100 square-feet, the home has the capacity to house 48 women, and currently houses 35.
Women living in the house abide by rules, attend regular house meetings, and progress through a phase system, starting at phase one when they first enter the house. Once they get a job and find a sponsor, they can apply to move to phase two where they will receive more privileges.
“This is where they come when they first get out of treatment,” Carroll said. “This is where they have to stabilize and get a job, show that they are doing well with their recovery [and] that they are committed to their recovery. [The proposed house on Archery Lane] is intended to be more of [what] you can call a step-down residence.”
Sober home on Archery Lane
The recovery home on Archery Lane was to be an extension of Lotus House. Owned by NewLife NH, Carroll was going to lease and manage the space, for 12 women who demonstrate stability in their jobs and recovery to be hand selected to live.
According to Dan Murphy, owner of NewLife NH, Nashua’s land use code allows for one unrelated resident per 300 square-feet in the district the sober home was proposed.
He said that the proposed sober home has inaccurately been referred to as a halfway house, clarifying that recovery/sober homes are not the same as halfway houses since sober homes do not involve treatment.
He added that he respects the city and the Zoning Board and doesn’t believe their decision to appeal to be discriminatory, but due to misinformation.
“Evidence shows that this is a disease and that it’s a mental health crisis,” Carroll said of addiction. “People just hold on tightly to believing that it’s amoral deficiency and a thing or character or something like that, when in reality some of the best people I’ve met, ever, are people who are in recovery and have committed their lives to helping other people do the same thing. That’s very admirable, I think.”