Gaming Commissioners Tour Sheriff's Recovery Center They Help Fund

SPRINGFIELD — State gambling regulators — facing their own budget crunch — toured Tuesday the Hampden County Sheriff's Recovery and Wellness Center, which the state gaming commission supported with casino revenues over the past nine years.

Sheriff Nicholas Cocchi explained that the 145-bed facility – intended for men and women convicted of crimes but at the same time seeking recovery from drug and alcohol addictions – does not have bars , no fence, no locks on the doors.

“If they want to leave, they can,” he said. “They don’t.”

This is due, he said, to relationships with staff and each other, addiction recovery programs, life skills and job preparation, all offered in a therapeutic environment at 155, Mill Street.

Residents – as they are called, never inmates – come to the Mill Street facility while they serve their sentences in the county, state or federal correctional center.

Having a facility in a Springfield neighborhood helps residents access jobs and services in the community, Cocchi said. The center – which has 97 residents as of Tuesday – serves residents of Worcester, Hampden, Franklin, Hampshire and Berkshire counties.

Graduate Norma Hairston told Massachusetts gaming commissioners she didn't have a plan when she arrived at Mill Street a little more than two years ago. It was part of his transition out of the state prison system.

“I had time to reflect on my life,” she said. “It was all part of God’s plan.”

She now works with Western Mass CORE and is a proud holder of culinary and service safety certificates from Holyoke Community College. CORE stands for Community, Opportunity, Resources and Education; it is a program that helps incarcerated people transition to higher education.

The gaming commissioners who visited Tuesday – Acting Chairman and Baker Administration Official Jordan Maynard, Former Prosecutor Eileen O'Brien, Former State Rep. Bradford R. Hill and Attorney Nakisha Skinner – voted 4-0 in early May to award a $400,000 grant to the Recovery and Wellness Center of Western Massachusetts.

But at that meeting, O'Brien said this will likely be the last year she votes yes to what is an annual request. She questioned in early May why the Gaming Commission still supported the program nearly a decade after its forced move put it on the commission's radar.

Support dates back to when the center — founded in 1985 by Sheriff Michael Ashe under former Gov. Michael Dukakis — was in a former YWCA building on Howard Street in the South End.

This building was sold and demolished as part of MGM's construction of its 14-acre, $970 million casino. The sheriff's office — led by Ashe and later by Cocchi — scrambled to find a new site, first in Holyoke and then in Springfield, after battling neighborhood opposition.

A former retirement home that had also housed Six Flags summer workers, the Mill Street building was chosen and rehabilitated.

Cocchi highlighted Tuesday the positive effects on the community, the well-maintained grounds and the trust established with the city.

The sheriff's office is in the ninth year of a 10-year renewable lease for the site with landlord Mill Street Iconic of Long Island, New York.

The Mill Street building costs $1.15 million a year in rent, according to documents submitted by the sheriff's office to the Gaming Commission. That compares to the $666,000 in rent paid at the old site.

Cocchi: It's a special program

Cocchi said the Mill Street facility houses a special program, which is worth saving despite budget constraints and the post-COVID trend of fewer people in the correctional system.

“Our population is declining. If I needed to move 97 people to Ludlow, I could,” Cocchi said. “I have room for them. But I couldn't give them that.

This includes wearing street clothes – within a dress code – and access to group therapy, drug treatment classes, as well as academic and vocational subjects, including a program for aspiring arborists.

He and his team took the commissioners into a classroom and computer lab.

“The first step to college starts here,” he said.

And after?

In addition to having to convince commissioners, the Gaming Commission last year changed its community mitigation program to a block grant system, providing the areas around each of three casinos — Springfield, Encore Boston Harbor in Everett and Plainridge Park in Plainville – part of the funds must be distributed locally. The commission decides on funding, some of which could go to the sheriff's office or other public safety initiatives.

Another challenge also lies ahead: Current proposals for the new state budget call for more casino revenue in the general fund and less available to the Gaming Commission. Gov. Maura Healey and the Senate Ways and Means Committee want to use $100 million in gaming revenue for other purposes, while the House would reallocate $79.7 million, according to the State House News Service.

Committee Chairman Maynard declined to engage with the budget bills under consideration.

“We don’t comment on legislation,” Maynard said. “We let the legislators do their job. We are making good use of community mitigation funds. We will continue to make good use of community mitigation funds, if we still receive them.