Adrienne Bledsoe is like a lot of young moms doing the balancing act: wife, mother and professional. She and her husband moved to University City three years ago to raise their children in a safe community, where the schools are good, the parks are close by and the crime rate is low. Five months after she moved into a home she and her husband remodeled, Bledsoe found a business card on her driveway that read Practical Recovery. She learned from the website that two residences on the west side of U.C. served as six-bed rehabilitation facilities, where clients come to stay typically 30 days to detoxify and rehabilitate from drug and alcohol addictions. One of the houses — which is situated next to the Bledsoe family — is leased and the other one is owned by Practical Recovery president and CEO Dr. Tom Horvath. On a quiet evening in June, the University City United Church of Christ opened its sanctuary doors to a noisy crowd of nearly 200 residents for a two-hour informational meeting organized by a group called Protect UC. The steering committee, all volunteers (including Bledsoe), gathered to inform the audience about Practical Recovery. A panel of five addressed the audience: District 1 City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner; Assemblyman Na-than Fletcher’s chief of staff, Erik Caldwell; state Sen. Christine Kehoe’s representative, Laura Hein; Bledsoe and Francisco Von Borstel, steering committee members and U.C. residents. Several community members expressed concerns about bringing patients with addiction problems into the residential neighborhood. Concerns included safety; a potential increase in traffic; a possible increase in drug- and alcohol-related crimes; and a potential decrease in home values. Bledsoe said she was shattered when she discovered the house next door was an all-male recovery home and not the home of a potential playmate for her children. She said she feared for her small children, citing the statistic that 90 percent of property crimes are related to drugs. “I hope and pray we won’t be a story on national news,” she said, adding that she and her husband wouldn’t have bought the home had they known about the business next door. “I never feel safe.” Lightner took residents’ concerns into consideration, and encouraged residents to take note of any activity involving the facilities that they felt might be a threat to the community. “I appreciate your frustration,” she said. “Keep a detailed log of any nuisance created by the facility.” Lightner said her office had reviewed the applicable California law regarding residential rehabilitation. She found that, according to state law, a licensed group home serving six or fewer residents must have a permit-use designation in all residential zones in which a single-family home is permitted. No conditional-use permit, variance, or special permit can be required for these small group homes. Caldwell said he was shocked that no notification of the community by the recovery homes was made. Still, he acknowledged that not much could be done, considering the definition of handicapped under the Fair Housing Act includes drug addiction (other than addiction caused by current, illegal use of a controlled substance) and alcoholism. “Federal law prevents the state from doing anything, with [the Fair Housing Act] taking precedence,” he said. “Drug and alcohol addictions are a sickness — a health issue — a protected class that can’t be discriminated against.” One member of the audience asked why there weren’t restrictions for a treatment center like Practical Recovery, wondering why a business with six unrelated tenants was allowed to operate in a residential zone. State law, Lightner and Caldwell pointed out, does not allow a city to pass any law treating licensed residential rehabilitation facilities with six or fewer patients any differently than any other single-family residence. Members of Protect UC’s committee emphasized they were not on a witch hunt, but rather were hoping to ensure the community wouldn’t be opened up to a barrage of similar facilities. “U.C. has done its part by having two [rehab facilities],” Von Borstel said. The steering committee, he said, wanted to fight the clustering of such homes in close vicinity. Several years ago, according to Lightner’s office, Newport Beach passed the most restrictive residential rehabilitation legislation in the state. The city was sued by rehabilitation home operators, and the litigation is still ongoing. “Cities throughout California are watching this litigation as a test case for how the courts will allow cities to regulate residential rehabilitation homes,” said Lightner representative Erin Demorest. It’s important to note, Demorest added, that the Newport Beach law is still subject to state law and does not place any limitations on licensed homes with six or fewer occupants. Linda Forester, another member of the steering committee, lives down the street from one of the facilities. Her radar went up, she said, when it was first established, and it’s the marketing of such treatment centers she’s concerned about. “[It’s like] ‘Come to Southern California to recover,’” she said. “This is a for-profit business. It seems unfair to the community. We are not targeting one owner. We are targeting clustering — putting too many in close vicinity.” Forester said she plans to carry out that targeting with signatures, and she handed out petitions at the meeting. “Petitions work,” she said. “Who will buy a home next to these facilities? Why aren’t zoning laws protecting the community?” Whatever the conclusion the community comes to, Von Borstel said, it won’t be an easy road to compromise. “It’s going to be a long process,” he said. “It won’t be answered tonight.” CEO Horvath attended the meeting, though in a “non-speaking role.” In a later interview, he addressed some of the residents’ concerns — chiefly, that Practical Recovery had made a definitive decision not to open any more facilities in University City west of Genesee. “It would be entirely legal for any number of homes to move in, provided they met the requirements of the law,” he said. “But we have voluntarily limited ourselves to the two homes already operating. Others could come in, yes — we have no control over that. But from our end, we’re staying at the current size.” Horvath said he was sensitive to residents’ concerns — however valid they may be. Though he admitted he hadn’t made any diligent investigations into the issue of property value, he said he had heard conflicting reports from various sources — some saying there was no evidence to support the idea that properties have ever decreased in value because of the presence of such a facility, and others who weren’t sure. All of which, he said, simply means a more thorough study is in order. Horvath freely admitted there is likely a strong correlation between drug users and crime — which had nothing to do with his facilities, he said. “I think [Bledsoe] is right to be concerned about drugs and crime, since those who purchase illegal drugs often resort to burglary and theft,” he said. “We looked up crime statistics and found hundreds of crimes in University City, but that wouldn’t be our patients, because they’re in treatment. We haven’t been affiliated with any crime statistic in U.C. It’s a legitimate concern, but it’s not relevant to us.” Horvath said his hope is that, in time, the community would come to embrace Practical Recovery for the work it does. “We hope that our neighbors will come to be proud of us,” he said. “We’re one of the most innovative treatment centers in the country. We provide individualized care, helping people move forward in life with a sense of meaning and purpose. There aren’t many rehabs like this. We treat people who, even though they’re powerless over this one part of their lives, they’re otherwise not powerless people. We tend to see attorneys, business executives, musicians, writers — we see all kinds, but the one thing they have in common is that they want to solve this problem and move forward. We’re very proud of our work, and we feel our neighbors could be, too.” At the meeting, Bledsoe and Von Borstel encouraged residents to contact Horvath and meet with him to discuss concerns about the facilities. Horvath said he had since met with a few, but he urged more to come forward with questions — like the issue of prior notification, which Hein and Caldwell had questioned. “We have actually been open in University City for five years, but for four years we operated as a sober-living home,” Horvath said. “Frankly, the sober-living home could be considered a somewhat less safe operation, because there’s not as much staff and the residents don’t have the same supervision. And for all those four years, we weren’t ever affiliated with any crime statistic in U.C., which I think is a significant track record. “I’m probably leaning toward providing prior notification in the future, but only on a case-by-case basis,” he continued. “I feel that it plays into the idea that somehow these homes are a magnet for sexual predators, homicidal maniacs, thieves and burglars, which has no basis in statistics or reasoning. Everyone knows where their local drug houses and alcoholics are, and they just avoid them and laugh about it, and yet somehow we get branded as unsafe. So I’m not supportive of [prior notification] to that extent, but to the extent of wanting to be a good neighbor, that is a good thing.” Overall, committee members said, they hoped government representatives would work with residents of University City to address their concerns regarding the facilities and the potential for more to crop up in the community. “We just want to protect and preserve the character of this community,” Bledsoe said. For more information on Protect UC, visit www.protectuc.com. For more information on Practical Recovery, visit www.practicalrecovery.com. — Kendra Hartmann contributed to this story