West Virginia City Puts Moratorium on New Treatment Centers, Sober Living Homes

Citing concerns over bad actors within the field of addiction treatment who are potentially taking advantage of vulnerable residents, lawmakers in Parkersburg, West Virginia, have voted to put a moratorium on the opening of new treatment centers and recovery residences in the city for about a year. The ban was approved by an 8-1 vote.

“There’s good players, and there are bad players,” Mayor Tom Joyce said, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB). “I see the next few months as an opportunity to maybe sit down and identify who’s doing what and who’s doing it better than everybody else.”

Parkersburg is located in Wood County, which has about 20% of West Virginia’s treatment beds and less than 10% of its recovery beds, according to WVPB. A case manager for Hope Recovery Manor, a sober living program for women in Parkersburg that opened about a year ago, estimates there is a shortage of about 100 recovery beds in Wood County.

About 93,000 individuals in the U.S. died by drug overdose in 2020, a 29.4% year-over-year increase, according to the latest CDC data. West Virginia reported 1,326 deaths in the 12 months ending in December 2020, a 55.6% increase over the previous year.

During a recent city council meeting, council member Sharon Kuhl was among city officials who praised good-faith operators engaging with the community. Still, Kuhn said a lack of regulation around sober living homes in particular has opened the door for dishonest actors to move into residential areas, including locations near schools, and then kick out vulnerable individuals.

“If [individuals in recovery] come and they decide after 1 or 2 days they want to leave, [sober living facilities] kick them out, and they’re on the streets,” Kuhl said, according to WVPB. “Then they become homeless, then they become Parkersburg’s problem.”

Wood County Delegate John Kelly has introduced a bill in the state legislature that requires alcohol and drug treatment facilities and service providers to obtain certification for demonstrating a need for their services in a given area. Under a recently signed West Virginia law, recovery residences receiving state funds or state referrals are required to obtain certification from the West Virginia Alliance of Recovery Residences. To obtain such certification, operators must demonstrate that they meet standards of care and community engagement. This includes providing a safe, spacious place to live and having a good neighbor policy.

In the meantime, the West Virginia chapter of the ACLU has warned Parkersburg City Council that because substance use disorder is considered a disability, the city’s new moratorium could be in violation of federal disability laws.

“The proposed ordinance [cites] a connection between individuals being evicted from or voluntarily terminating their involvement with a program resulting in a high number of people from outside the area remaining there and often becoming homeless,” the ACLU said in a statement. “Though the ordinance outlines this as a justification for the policy, they do not provide any data that provides a direct correlation between the goal of the proposed ordinance and its justification.”