From The Inquirer archives: Carpenters get to work fixing a halfway house

This article originally appeared in The Inquirer on Dec. 29, 1994.

By Russell Gold, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

After a snowfall crippled the porch roof last winter, Connie Bastek-Karasow, director of a halfway house for women recovering from addiction, couldn’t afford to take money away from her budget for repairs. But help came from what she considered an unlikely source.

“She never believed we were going to do it,” said Harry McGuckin, business manager for the Bucks County carpenters’ local. Starting earlier this month, dozens of unionized carpenters, electricians, and floor-layers have donated their time and expertise to Libertae, the halfway house for 21 women on Bensalem Boulevard that dates back to the Civil War.

“Unions are always criticized for everything,” McGuckin said. “But the public gives us work when they build their schools, so we try to give back a little.” He said he hopes the money saved on labor costs can help more women recover.

In a couple of weekends, the $30-an-hour skilled laborers have put down the new floor, built a storage shed, started a 45-foot-long winterized porch, and tackled other assorted odd jobs. After the holidays, unfinished work will be completed, McGuckin said.

“It still amazes me. All I have to do is pick up the phone and they come over,” Bastek-Karasow said. Most of the residents have been abandoned by the men in their lives. Yet the workers volunteering their time for Libertae are all men.

Under the kitchen floor were four layers of maple wood, tile, plywood and more tile dating back for decades. Three members of the local floor-layers’ union took all day to tear out layer after buckled layer, all the way down to the joists. They then put down a solid, new linoleum covering.

No one at Libertae even blinked. They have done their share of digging themselves, looking for a solid foundation on which to rebuild their lives.

Women live in the large stone house for up to six months. They receive addiction counseling and life-skill training to help them after their treatment is over.

“So often you hear, ‘good girls don’t’ or ‘moms don’t,’” Bastek-Karasow said. When a women is addicted, people tend to look away. “Women become isolated. People move away from them and don’t confront them.”

Because of this, women who make it into a detoxification process usually are in the advanced, potentially devastating stages of addiction, Bastek-Karasow said.

Libertae is one of only 17 halfway houses statewide, according to Bruce Caldwell, president of the Pennsylvania Halfway House Association.

Halfway house residents are referred from detoxification programs, where they are weaned off the addictive substance.

Last year, Libertae housed 76 women, Bastek-Karasow said. She has compiled some statistics about residents that demonstrate what she says is the ''stigma" and “rejection” that chemically dependent women experience.

Only 4% of the women were married. “Women will stand by their man, but men will not necessarily stand by their addicted women,” she said. Two-thirds were homeless, living on the street or with family when they entered a detox program.

Bastek-Karasow plans to build a second, free-standing house that would accommodate an additional 16 women and 32 children. She said she wants to treat women with their children because addictive behavior is often passed from one generation to the next, so any treatment needs to include the whole family.

So far, Bastek-Karasow has raised two-thirds of the $1.8 million she estimates is needed for the building. Many of the financial commitments have come from state and local government. Three-quarters of her annual operating budget is from the state.

McGuckin admits that he wouldn’t mind getting some of the contracts for the new building, but he is adamant that that’s not the reason the laborers are helping out.

“The men keep coming back because they feel there is not enough goodness in everyone’s heart today,” he said.

“It’s not that we get sentimental. I just got a bunch of guys who are willing to do it.”