Billerica panel revises sober living scholarship draft

BSAP · Meeting of September 15, 2026

Billerica's BSAP Sober Living Scholarship Subcommittee organized and reworked a draft framework for scholarships that would help eligible residents pay for certified sober living housing, to be paid for with opioid settlement money rather than tax dollars. Members elected Chaz Boynton chair and Dina Favreau secretary by 3-0 roll-call votes, then revised eligibility, duration and conflict-of-interest language over roughly an hour. The group set a 30-day minimum scholarship award with a 90-day per-person annual cap, discussed a roughly $30 daily reimbursement rate, and struck a proposed sliding-scale copayment model as unworkable.

Member Dan Viola, who co-owns two Lowell sober homes, said "nobody ever gets a scholarship from BSAP to one of our houses" to avoid recusal disputes. Member Bobby Simmons favored a 45-day term with re-evaluation. The subcommittee removed a proposed appeals process and tentatively set its next meeting for September 29, aiming to bring the finished framework to the full BSAP board for a vote at its first meeting in October.

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Source: the BSAP meeting of September 15, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript. It was corrected where it differed.

Correction (Nov. 2, 2026): An earlier version of this story said the subcommittee was drafting a policy for spending more than $2 million in opioid settlement funds. It was drafting rules for scholarships that would help eligible residents pay for certified sober living housing, paid from opioid settlement money; the $2 million is the town's total expected settlement, paid over 17 years. The story also gave the wrong date for the subcommittee's next meeting, which was tentatively set for September 29, and misstated one of Dina Favreau's remarks.

Correction (Nov. 3, 2026): This story was further corrected to credit other remarks, motions and votes to the right people, or to no one where the recording does not say who spoke, and to correct the names and titles of town staff.