Jun 18, 2016 7 min read

WAYNESBURG – Heather Bates hit rock bottom nearly three years ago when she found herself sitting handcuffed in a police station next to her 5-year-old son at 2 a.m.

She had brought her young son along with her when she tried to burglarize a Franklin Township home in October 2013.

“When you’re high on opiates, you don’t feel anything,” she said. “Your whole body’s numb and all you care about is getting the next high.”

Nine months in jail and two rehab centers later, she’s once again trying to stay sober and trying to ignore the voices of addiction in her head telling her she needs another fix. This time, the 29-year-old Rices Landing native is trying recovery on her own with the help of Greene County’s newest sober-living facility for women.

The Bird Sisters Oxford House, which opened in January on Richhill Street in Waynesburg, was named after Jennifer Bird Porter, 32, and Megan Bird, 30, two local sisters who both died of heroin overdoses in 2014. The girls’ mother, Lynn Bird, worked with the Waynesburg nonprofit rehabilitation program Steps Inside to open the facility, which can house up to eight women.

But facilitators have had trouble filling the home ever since it opened about six months ago. In January, three women moved in and, within a month, two of them moved out for unknown reasons.

Unlike many halfway houses, the Oxford House residents must hold each other accountable with three main rules: There is a zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol, residents must pay rent and other expenses and each person has to participate in the democratic process of running the house.

The men’s Oxford House on Cumberland Street in Waynesburg, which opened nearly two years ago, has been at full occupancy at times and is widely viewed as a success.

Bonnie Fisher, a facilitator for the women’s house and who has been working with the Greene County Probation Department in search of potential applicants, said one reason why it’s harder to fill the women’s home is because many of them have children, which the Bird Sisters’ House does not accommodate.

“It seems to be more difficult for women because a lot of women have custody of their kids,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of women inquire about the house, who have children and need a place for them.”

There are four vacancies in the Bird Sisters House and funding is running out, according to Robert Terry of Steps Inside.

“It’s slow-going for the women’s house right now, but we need to keep this resource here,” he said during a Community Recovery Committee meeting Tuesday. “For the first time, we can offer them a place to live and that means a lot in recovery.”

Steps Inside has been paying rent for the vacancies at the house since it opened with money that came from donations. There is $1,900 left in that fund, he said, which should last them at least three more months.

If they run out of money, Terry said they will drop affiliation with the Oxford House, but run the facility in a similar fashion. By dropping the affiliation, Terry said his organization would no longer be responsible for paying rent on the vacancies in the house. But the owner of the property, whom he declined to name, has agreed to absorb the loss of revenue from those vacancies. Terry said that if they later filled the house, they would reapply for certification from the Oxford House.

Fisher said she knows of two more women who will possibly move in within the next month, which would bring the occupancy level to 75 percent full. Of the four women who are there now, Fisher said two of them have jobs and are able to pay rent. Bates, who just moved in last month, and another woman who moved in a few days ago, are still job hunting.

“I can see a change in the girl that’s been there the longest,” Fisher said. “She’s got more confidence and is able to see her kids on a regular basis. She’s a lot happier.”

Bates, too, has come a long way since Oct. 1, 2013 – the day she was arrested on attempted burglary, endangering the welfare of a child and trespass charges.

“I needed money for that month’s rent and any extra money I would spend on drugs,” she said.

So, Bates took her 5-year-old son and drove to a former boss’s house in Franklin Township. She left the child in the car with a man she had only known for a week, while she tried to break into a sun room attached to the house. Her former boss caught her and called the police.

“My son sat with me at the station and saw me in handcuffs,” Bates said. “That’s a night I’ll never forget and I never want to put my son through that situation again.”

She was sentenced three months later to 9 months in Greene County jail and she lost custody of her son.

Bates’ addiction began in 2006 when she shattered both ankles in a head-on collision. She was prescribed pain medication for nine months. In the height of her addiction, she was ingesting 190 pain pills in less than two days. The pills were her drug of choice, but she’s also used cocaine and heroin.

“Heroin was easier to find and cheaper,” she said. “I was afraid whenever I was using heroin that maybe I would get a bad bag and die, but that still wouldn’t stop me from doing it. That’s how strong this disease is.”

When she got out of jail she went to recovery group meetings every day and stayed sober for a year and two months. When she started slacking off her meetings, she relapsed.

“When I’m not around recovering addicts, I relapse,” she said.

She went to a doctor for back pain in December of 2014. He didn’t know she was an addict, and prescribed her pain pills.

“I abused them right off the bat,” she said.

She checked into a rehab center near Altoona and stayed clean for another year. She relapsed a second time this past January after stealing her friend’s pain medication.

“This second relapse is harder than the first one,” she said. “But I just got to the point where I threw my hands up and said ‘I’m done with this.'”

On May 22, she moved into the Bird Sisters House.

She now sees her son on weekends, but hopes to eventually get custody back and get her own place.

“I love it here,” she said. “It’s easier to get to meetings and stay connected with other people in recovery. It’s important to be around clean and sober people all day, every day.”

Fisher said the Bird Sisters Oxford House and similar sober living facilities are so important because they help addicts focus on recovery, which is key because “it has to be the most important thing in your life.”

“You’re going to meetings and your mind is on recovery and the people around you are working on recovery,” she said. “It’s a guide for living for addicts.”

To donate to the Bird Sisters Oxford House or to apply for residency, call Fisher at 724-231-5545.