"Sober Living" is Prime Real Estate for Slumlords Exploiting Recovering Addicts

[Jabberwocky]

"Sober Living" is Prime Real Estate for Slumlords Exploiting Recovering Addicts

April 29, 2013 |

A sober home is exactly what it sounds like. It's a place people can go when they first come out of rehab. Somewhere to live, drug- and alcohol-free. Residents take drug tests, attend 12-step meetings and have curfews to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Realtor Brian Wall says sober homes have become a lucrative business for him. A single sale can net him up to $40,000. He says the perfect sober house has lots of bedrooms, and is far away from nosy neighbors. That's because these homes can turn into overcrowded boarding houses that no one wants to live next to.

Like a rundown house I visited in the San Fernando Valley. More than 20 men live in the home, and they share just one bathroom with no door. The owner of the property refused to do an interview, but one of the residents reluctantly showed me around.

Tenants say even the garage was being used as a bedroom. There were bunkbeds to sleep a dozen men but there was no heat, running water or electricity. When I went to see for myself, the house manager demanded I leave.

Despite the appalling conditions, a bed here still costs as much as $500. When the house is full, the owner can net over $10,000 a month. Realtor Brian Wall says this kind of money is attracting people to the sober home business.

"If I'm not doing it to make money, then why am I doing it?" Wall says. "If I'm doing it for passion, that's great, but that doesn't help me open up 10 houses."

But Jeff Christensen says the idea of sober homes is supposed to be about helping addicts get back on their feet.

Christensen, director of the Sober Living Network [3], says, "If you want to call this a business, that's great. We don't. We call it service to these people. If we get back to the fundamentals of what this about, it’s a matter of life and death for the people who livethere."

Christensen says the problem is anyone can open up a sober home. And it's almost impossible to shut the bad ones down. That's because addicts are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"These bad landlords are clever," Christensen says. "They're going, 'Hey, if I say I'm asober living, I can hide behind federal protections.'"

So how do you help recovering addicts when so many people are just trying to make a buck off them? Christensen says one solution is self-regulation. That’s what his nonprofit organization’s all about -- getting sober home owners to agree to follow certain rules.

"We do inspections, we go out and we take a look at their management practices, require them to be trained," Christensen says.

One of the sober home owners who took that training was Cristofer Justin. He owns and manages six sober homes near San Diego.

"There's such a demand and there's such a need," Justin says. "It's a great opportunity to be of service."

Justin finds recovering addicts at local churches, probation and parole offices, and through ads on Craigslist. Tenants pay him up to $500 for a single bed. But unlike somesober home owners, Justin actually offers services like drug testing and counseling.

"You have to be extra attentive to make sure that they don’t have opportunities to fall back on old habits and old attitudes," Justin says.

But soon these sober homes, good or bad, may disappear. At least in Los Angeles. The city council is trying to pass an ordinance to shut them all down. Sober living advocates say it could leave thousands of recovering addicts with nowhere to go.

This article was produced in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. Lisa Desai [4] contributed to the reporting of this story. Listen to a podcast about the piece here [5].
See more stories tagged with:
sober living [6],
addiction [7],
scam [8]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/sober-living-prime-real-estate-slumlords-exploiting-recovering-addicts

Links:
[1] http://www.marketplace.org/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/lisa-desai
[3] http://www.soberhousing.net/
[4] http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/reporters/lisadesai/
[5] http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/renting-homes-recovering-addicts-profit
[6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/sober-living
[7] http://www.alternet.org/tags/addiction
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/scam
[9] http://www.alternet.org/+new_src+

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/sober-living-prime-real-estate-slumlords-exploiting-recovering-addicts

Given that I was drugged, sexually abuse, raped and robbed* ** thanks to a shady sober living home and a psychopathic, manipulative, fascist house manager, a sober living that, after meeting the manager and residents, and taking a tour, that this sort of thing could happen there would be the last thing on your mind...

Good sober living are out there, I know this for sure, but they seem to be nothing but the exception to the rule. Much more often, as the article points out, they're there to make money. Plain and simple.

*Engagement ring stolen, that from my fiance who had been killed six month earlier by a drunk driver; that was actually the hardest thing to deal with, never being able to see, feel, to touch that ring again, I really struggled with that; that said, overcoming that horrible experience, the ring and everything else, but especially the ring, I have ended up so much better of, albeit that I paid a terribly steep price for the wisdom gained.

**One of the worst things about this, and the most struggling aspects in getting over and past it, next to the while ring thing, was the fact that I remember little if any of what actually happened. Certain things that had happened were obvious once I regained consciousness and, well, you know when you've been raped, even if you were drugged first. That was, and continues to be, if to a smaller degree, a huge struggle. But what can I say, I'm always up for a challenge

Thank god my folks instilled a strong sense of self in me as a child and likewise a positive attitude toward life, regardless of how depressed, down on myself or anxious I can get. But at the end of the day, if you're still alive and kicking, the whole ordeal has only made me stronger. And I love how the new abilities I've had to learn and acquire have added to my overall character, all that good (and bad(and neutral)) stuff that makes me an individual, a human being.

 

[cj]

Yeah i have always thought sober living houses a scam. Why eould i eant to live with a bunch of drug addicts while trying to get off drugs.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Well, like I said, I'm ran into a couple (two) sober houses that are legit and seem to really do a great service to their clientele. I get the impression that some of the best ones are connected to outpatient programs, but who knows. One of these I've mentioned was rather expensive, but real luxury kinda deal (condo, one room mate, each with own bath, own room, share a kitchen, gated community). Most of them are a lot cheaper, and especially those that house a lot, with 2+ to a room, or people in "rooms" that aren't really habitable in the humane sense (i.e. closet), those seem to be the scummiest.

But they stink, a sick part of the stew that is the Recovery Industrial Complex.

This all said, a cheap room that's relatively easy to find, where it's acceptable for someone who's legit trying to work towards "recovering" from their "addiction(s)," a safe place to live (although again, most aren't exactly safe), this sort of thing, it's a necessary resource. Same goes for AA/xA meanings - they're free and anyone can join. I am not a fan of AA, very much the critical skeptic, but in a sense they're better than nothing.

Which is sad, the fact that this is what we're left to work with. Too bad the people who make and enforce policy have no problem with indirectly, and often directly, dealing death to those who, for whatever reason, choose or chose ingest certain famous and infamous substances. But I am beginning to digress.

What an abysmal failure our national public health aparatus has been, for god knows how long (probably started, or at least took off like crazy, when they started creating law outlawing certain drugs for purely racial and white supremacist reasons (Mexicans smoked/ate/whatever weed to chill out instead of beer, and of course Mexican are an inferior race; Black were known to race and abuse defenseless white women thanks to the demon drug cocaine, and Blacks are more monkey than man; Chinese immigrants brought opium along with certain culinary traditions to the US, and again they're evil because said white women, that ultimate virgin Goodness, purity itself, they were lured by the Yellow Menace into said dens, tricked or otherwise made to smoke opium, whereupon they lost their sense and those Yellow devils had their way with them; etc. etc. etc. lots of good articles, threads, books, case studies, even college classes on this exact subject out there).

 

[change-jug]

My friend just moved into a sober living house about 6 blocks down the street from me. It has one apartment upstairs and one apartment downstairs,2 dudes to each floor. I saw the inside of the 1st floor apartment,if someone gave it some TLC it could be a really nice place. But seeing as how each "tenant" can only live there for 6 months max,no one wants to put a fresh coat of paint on the walls. So it looks like a slum. Too bad tho.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Now unusual, sounds bad, but even that's a far cry from some of the worse off so-called sober homes out there. But hey, at least your buddy is doing, I imagine by moving into an enviroment that at least is supposed to support and encourage sobriety, what he needs to do to take care of himself.

 

[change-jug]

I totally agree with you. I`m sure this stable,safe house is going a long way to keeping him positive. Before this he had been homeless on and off for 3+ years. So I`m sure he`s not bitching about the primer white walls,ceiling,trim and floor boards.

Although he told me that his rent is paid by either his medicaid or it`s paid thru the government program he`s in. So he doesnt worry about making ends meet and can focus on his clean living. He told me that his rent is $700 a month,plus $700 for his room mate and the $700 each for the 2 guys upstairs. So this landlord is killing it on the rent! If he was renting out the apartment he would be LUCKY to get $550 - $600 for each flat. So now instead of this scuzzy landlord making 1,000 to 1,200 a month from the whole house this guy is netting $2,800 a month. Sweet deal.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Yea, especially considering his time on the street, it sounds like this is one of those once in a lifetime kind of opportunities! Short of the worst of the worst sober living homes, managers, owners and occupants, in a way it is all relative (decaying but structurally sound sober home > homelessness). Lets just hope that the house manager/owner aren't psychopathic or greedy slime balls (doesn't sound like it) and that the other occupants do less harm than good. With that, as you said given his rent's not something he had to worry about, he's really got a great opportunity here! Hope he continues making progress!

 

[xxkcxx]

The 2 sober living houses I lived in were very legit. Both were overseen by licensed therapist with drug counseling certifications.

I have, however, heard about a LOT of less legitimate houses in the area. Houses where so long as you pay your rent, it doesn't really matter what you do. If you come in drunk or high, you pay an extra fee, and then you can stay. Tenants mean income for the people running the house.