8 ways to be a good sober home neighbor

When Executive Director Erin Helms began planning to open the first of her Woodrow Project recovery homes for women in Cleveland, her initial meeting with local officials didn’t go so well. “We met with the local planning department, and I think that first meeting lasted 10 minutes,” she says. “They basically said, ‘You can’t do this here.’”

Undeterred, Helms contacted the National Alliance of Recovery Residences (NARR) to find out more about where the law stood on recovery housing. Armed with that information, she was able to launch her first house and is now in the process of planning two more homes without any further conflict with the city or her neighbors.

That’s not always the case. Communities are often suspicious of sober living or recovery homes, worrying that their might be criminals in the homes; that drug dealers will target the neighborhood; that the residents will disrupt the neighborhood; or that their property values will decline.

Extreme examples of these community vs. recovery home conflicts can be found in California and in Palm Beach County in Florida, where a surge in sober living facilities has homeowners up in arms (and often in court).

But those reactions are typically caused by misperceptions of exactly what is happening in the sober homes and what types of residents are there—because of the actions of a few poorly run homes.

Decades of experience

The number of sober homes is growing, and the need for recovery housing is greater than ever as the United States struggles with an epidemic of heroin and opioid addiction, and that means more potential community conflicts. NARR has developed a set of recovery home standards, including a good neighbor policy, that can help operators put best practices in place that can improve community relations.

“The good neighbor policies are really a product of decades of experience established in our affiliates around the country,” says NARR president Dave Sheridan. “The central principle is, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it. The policy really centers around courtesy.”

Communication and education are also critical.

“What providers know and understand about the experience of residential recovery is a lot different than the assumptions in the community at large,” Sheridan says. “Those assumptions are often at odds with reality, but they are real to the people making them. Part of the challenge of a good operation is to change those stereotypes, and that takes time.”

Both the recovery community, neighbors and community leaders have to be willing to work together, says Palm Beach County attorney Jeffrey Lynne, whose firm, Beighley, Myrick, Udell & Lynne, represents hundreds of recovery home operators in Florida.

“If a community becomes committed to ensuring recovery residence meets its mission, then everybody wins,” Lynne says. How can a residence integrate better in the community? “It takes both sides coming together.”

While communities have to come to grips with the reality of the need for sober homes, there are things operators can do to smooth the transition. Here are eight strategies to mitigate confrontational reactions from neighborhood groups or city council and to help make sure your recovery home will be viewed as a good neighbor.

1 Know the law and be prepared to educate community leaders

Sober living homes are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the federal Fair Housing Act, and both the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Housing and Urban Development have made it clear just how little cities and counties can do to restrict or regulate these facilities.

Operators should know their rights and be prepared to educate local officials that may be inclined to attempt to zone them (or harass them) out of the city. For example, local zoning laws cannot restrict the location of a recovery residence.

You also have to make clear the difference between an acute treatment facility and a recovery residence and communicate what type of recovery residence is planned.

“Treatment facilities are treated differently,” Sheridan says. “Housing rights are attached to housing. As a disabled individual, a resident in one of our homes has a right to live in the housing of their choice, but they don’t have the right to live in a hospital or hotel.”

When cities overstep those bounds, they often pay a steep price in court. By making sure everyone involved is clear on the law ahead of time, recovery homes can potentially avoid contentious and expensive legal battles that can taint community relations.

2 Join a NARR affiliate and adopt its standards

NARR and its affiliates promote the adoption of its standards, which include good neighbor policies.

“The national standards we adopted were very helpful in giving us direction in how to practice as individual operators and what to promote at the state affiliate level,” says Beth Fisher Sanders, founder and executive director of Hope Homes Recovery Services, which operates in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville. She is also a past president of the Georgia Association of Recovery Residences and was the founding president of NARR.

Under the NARR framework, state affiliates certify recovery homes to the standard on a voluntary basis. In a few regions, this has been take a step further. In Massachusetts for example, recovery homes have to be certified in order to receive state funding or referrals, and Florida is taking a similar approach with its local affiliate, the Florida Association of Recovery Residences (FARR), which administers the certifications.

“The intention is start to push recovery residences toward standards,” Lynne says. “If you aren’t certified by FARR, then neighbors may be more justified in asking what’s going on in the home. If there are complaints above and beyond the typical type of neighbor complaint, the FARR steps in.”

Rather than placing a burden on residents—which violates fair housing rules—this approach puts the burden on operators.

“If you require higher standards of service from the operator, you run off the bad operators because they won’t want to spend the money to do the things that are appropriate to create that higher level of service,” Lynne says.

3 Minimize disruptions

Some of the most common complaints about sober homes involve traffic, noise, trash and groups of residents standing outside smoking.

“This is a common sense courtesy issue,” Sanders says. “You teach the residents that they need to keep the noise down and not to smoke in inappropriate places and to park in the right places. These are basic courtesy rules that we really do have to teach residents in early recovery.”

Make sure transportation drivers aren’t blaring their horns at 7 a.m. during treatment pick-ups. Ensure the facility has adequate parking for the number of residents and staff. Don’t block neighbors’ driveways. And remember that the neighbors likely keep a much different schedule than many of the residents of the home.

 “Even a well run house occasionally forgets that residents hanging out on the porch at 10:30 at night talking loudly can be grating to someone who has to get up at 6 a.m. to go to work,” Sheridan says.

4 Maintain the home as if it is your own

This is another common-sense item: a well-kept house with a mowed lawn that meets local housing standards is much less likely to attract negative attention. The recovery home shouldn’t look noticeably different than any other home on the street.

While not always possible, it can be helpful to locate in a neighborhood with a mix of single- and multi-family housing. Helms placed the Woodrow Project home (a three-family building) in such a neighborhood.

“We didn’t want the residents to feel out of place, and we had to look for somewhere with bus access and parking,” Helms says. “We did some work on the house, and in that process we met the neighbors and were very upfront about what we were doing. They have been very receptive. We’ve had no issues at all with the neighbors, because we went into this knowing our rights, and we treated what we were doing as perfectly normal.”

5 Communicate openly with the community

Make neighbors aware of what to expect from the recovery home and try to address any concerns early and preferably in-person if possible.

Operators also have to be responsive to neighborhood complaints. Have a contact number readily available to field complaints, and make sure legitimate problems are addressed quickly. It’s a best practice to communicate when the problems have been fixed.

“That quells those complaints early,” Sanders says.

Sanders relates a story about two residents in one of her company’s apartments that were disturbing an elderly neighbor because they were musicians.

“We talked to the neighbor, learned her schedule so they could practice around it, and we had the two young men apologize to her,” Sanders says. “They formed a relationship, and she felt better about knowing who was next door. When the neighbors meet the residents and realize they are just average people, that takes a lot of the fear and threat out of the equation.”

6 Act like a good neighbor

“Truth be told our home are some of the best neighbors one could have,” Sanders says. “There’s no partying, no drinking, no drugs.”

Managers and residents should also participate in the neighborhood as any other neighbor would. Offer to help neighbors with shoveling snow, or help elderly neighbors move their garbage cans, for example. The more the staff and residents of the home act like members of the neighborhood, the more accepted they will be by the other families on the street.

 “We recommend that homes integrate neighborhood living into the expectations of residency,” Sheridan says. “Formally introduce residents to the fact that living in the community is part of recovery. Part of reintegrating ourselves and getting our lives back on track is learning new ways to cope with the people we live around. That includes mindfulness of where you park your car, and when you have loud conversations. It’s more important than just courtesy; its part of learning to live like an adult.”

7 Become active in the community

As an operator, join the local chamber of commerce and participate in neighborhood associations. Join the neighborhood watch or get involved in local projects.

“It’s good to be known as a resource, and that will help people understand the valuable work you do,” Sheridan says.

And get to know the local police. “Sober homes are a great resource for the police departments, where there are good relationships in place,” Sheridan says. “At one of our groups in California, the local police department is a regular attendee at our meetings. It’s a good place to exchange information about what they see and what’s going on in the community.”

Working closely with police and community leaders can benefit the recovery community as a whole. Lynne cites Delray Beach in Florida as a good example. A community-based drug task force was convened to address many of these concerns.

“That took the community coming together and saying, if we are going to be the recovery capital of the U.S., we’re are going to be a center of excellence,” Lynne says. “By embracing the recovery community and demanding that providers do the best they can, everyone wins. The bottom-feeders leave. But convincing someone of that is difficult.”

8 Work to establish good recovery housing across the community

Work with the city and county to encourage well-run recovery homes to locate in the area. As in Massachusetts, county agencies could potentially tie referrals or reimbursement to compliance with NARR standards.

“Be proactive,” Sheridan says. “Introduce yourself to the local government, let them know how you operate, and offer your home as a resource.”

State-level NARR affiliates can help provide educational resources for city councils. In fact, NARR received a SAMHSA grant to develop just that type of presentation for city governments and civic organizations.

Communities have to walk a fine line. Even well-intentioned programs meant to encourage good recovery home operators—and discourage bad operators—can violate federal law. New regulations or code enforcement actions should be directed at promoting adherence to the standards, not shutting out recovery home operators.

Housing need

There are some signs that states, at least, are starting to wake up to the housing need. In Ohio, the state government invested $10 million in recovery housing to add 660 spots for those in recovery with more funding on the way.

Ohio Recovery Housing, the state’s NARR affiliate, has also set up a quality and certification program, following the NARR standards.

“The certification process has really helped identify what makes quality recovery housing,” Helms says. “That helps new operators, and even people who have been doing this for awhile will benefit. If you have these processes in place, it will alleviate these concerns and issue that keep coming up over and over again.”

Creating an environment where elected officials actively embrace recovery housing can be difficult. The type of cooperation Lynne and Beekman describe, which can encourage the establishment of good recovery homes, requires courage on the part of city and state government.

As awareness of the addiction problem grows, however, more communities will be pushed to create a better recovery environment.

“We have an addiction epidemic, and the only modality we have to treat it is treatment plus recovery housing,” Lynne says. “Until we build a better mousetrap, this is how we have to move forward.”

Brian Albright is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio.