PHA Healthcare, a drug addiction treatment provider in Baltimore under a state order to stop its outpatient programs, has told some patients that they can continue to reside in its housing, according to Banner interviews with current clients.

Late last month, an investigation by The Banner and The New York Times revealed PHA Healthcare had placed some patients in buildings where many people relapsed, overdosed and some died. A Maryland Department of Health spokesman confirmed last week that the program was cooperating to transition its patients elsewhere.

However, many of its patients say they have felt left in the dark.

In interviews, some current patients expressed confusion and alarm about the possible changes to their housing and treatment programs.

Nine patients said they were not previously aware of the Dec. 23 notice PHA Healthcare received from the state to cease and desist treatment services for operating without a valid license. Two said they heard the state was trying to shut the provider down, but PHA Healthcare told them it was working to ensure no one would end up on the streets.

PHA Healthcare Owner Stephen Thomas and employees recently held meetings with some patients and told them the program does not plan to shut down its housing, according to interviews. People would continue to live in their current PHA Healthcare-run buildings, but they would receive counseling from different treatment providers, according to patients’ accounts of the meetings.

It is unclear if the state favors keeping patients in PHA Healthcare-run facilities. Maryland health department spokesman Chase Cook said last week that PHA Healthcare had agreed to relocate patients.

The state’s letter required PHA Healthcare to submit a plan describing how it would notify patients and transition them out, but Cook declined to provide a copy of it. Asked whether the state is helping relocate patients out of PHA Healthcare, Cook said the department cannot speak in detail about active investigations. He added the provider has until Jan. 23 to comply with the state’s order to end its treatment program.

Thomas, the program’s owner, declined a request for comment.

PHA Healthcare was licensed by the state in 2020 to provide outpatient addiction services and has received millions from Medicaid for treating patients each year.

The company offers free rooms to people — many of them homeless — if they attend its treatment, which is provided online and often led by people who lived in other places like Nigeria and did not appear to be licensed as counselors in Maryland, The Banner and The Times found. Health officials described exchanging housing for enrollment in specific treatment services as illegal.

Thomas said in a previous interview that group counseling sessions were led by interns from other countries who had advanced degrees and were working to get licensed in Maryland. He has also said that PHA Healthcare had housed “many people” not in the company’s treatment, and continued to house some after they stopped. It gave clients housing through a “separate but related entity” that he helped manage, he added.

The city has also begun inspecting PHA Healthcare-run housing, according to the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development.

The agency has opened investigations into ten properties associated with PHA Healthcare, according to a department spokeswoman. The city has issued citations to owners of several properties occupied by PHA Healthcare for failing to comply with city registration and licensing rules, she said.

Inside one of PHA Healthcare’s facilities, patient Charlotte Townes said her counselor recently told her the “treatment aspect” of the program would no longer be under the company, and that some people were being relocated, but not everyone. The counselor did not say which provider would be taking over clinical services, according to Townes.

“They told us not to worry. Nobody would end up on the street,” said Townes, 54, who stays in a program-run apartment building in Mount Vernon, which she described as well furnished, properly maintained and safe. Residents of her building have not been told about any relocation plans, she said Tuesday.

Townes said after struggling with opioid addiction for three decades, the housing and counseling provided by PHA Healthcare has helped her stay sober, which she called nothing short of miraculous. “I think it’s really unfair to blame a program for people who choose to use in the program,” she said.

Another patient, Dana Herget, described a different experience.

Herget, 40, arrived at the program in June through a Facebook page that advertised free rooms for people seeking recovery from drug addiction. She said the program placed her in an apartment building that was boarded up with plywood, in a complex where many patients were using and selling drugs. She said she saw people relapse quickly in that environment.

The program eventually moved her to another house, where she said she stayed until the end of December, when she moved out due to disagreements with a house manager.

On Jan. 3, a week after the state’s cease-and-desist notice, Herget said she was told she could move into another one of the program’s houses. But last week, a staff member said the rooms were no longer available because they had been filled with other women, according to text messages to Herget and shared with The Banner.

Herget knows some people who are still living in PHA Healthcare’s housing. Though she does not want anyone to become homeless, she does not think it’s a good idea to allow the program to continue housing people.

“I think they need to be shut down completely,” she said.