How to Start a Sober Living Home in Your Community

Oxford House is a democratically peer-run, self-supporting, and drug-free home. The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations evaluates quality of care provided by healthcare organizations. Footprints has the Gold Seal of Approval, which is the highest standard. While you may want to live on your own right away, you might not be ready to manage total freedom at first. Sober living offers a balance between living in the real world and receiving some structure and monitoring. For an overview of the program, read the Recovery Residence fact sheet and Recovery Residence FAQ.

How to start a recovery house in Maryland?

  1. Find a location and lease or purchase the property.
  2. Get the required licenses.
  3. Complete renovations as needed.
  4. Purchase the proper insurance.
  5. Hire experienced staff.
  6. Create an operations' manual.
  7. Hire an experienced accountant.

In addition, most sober living homes do not mix genders and house only one gender. Some people relapse after treatment because they are unable to cope with life in an unsupportive environment. Sober living homes are alcohol and drug-free living environments that provide structured, transitional housing for men and women in recovery. Most people enter halfway houses right after inpatient or other formal rehab programs. Although halfway houses are open to those who want to join voluntarily, individuals on leaving probation or other correctional facilities are often court-mandated to stay in halfway houses for a specified period. Historically, halfway houses were for people who have served time in prison or other correctional facilities.

Recovery residence revolving loan fund

It will take up a lot of your time to go through application processes only to find out the person doesn’t fit your needs—or, more accurately, that you don’t fit their needs. Establish your sober living home as male only, female only or combined genders. Invite a person of the appropriate gender as a house manager to help run the house. Select a person who has been sober for six months to a year – contract with that person for an established period. Individuals in recovery may make reliable sober-living home operators as long as they maintain their programs of recovery.

how to start a sober living home

If you need help finding a sober living home or other treatment options, contact a treatment provider today. It would help if you took the time to vet potential staff members carefully because you don’t want anyone disrupting the recovery journey of one of the home’s residents. Staff should also sign the policy manual detailing the rules of the house. Recovery residences/sober living programs are certified by the National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR) state affiliate, Oklahoma Alliance for Recovery Residences (OKARR). ODMHSAS funds, both directly and through collaborative grant efforts, three recovery housing programs.

What is a sober living home?

In our interviews with dozens of operators, the most successful operations, in the long run, are primarily motivated to help individuals find recovery. Investors and lenders will carefully examine your business plan. With this in mind, you must spend enough time creating a clear and actionable plan, as this will be used to help you attain financing for your purchase. Take the time needed for each step in the process when you’re learning how to start a sober living home.

how to start a sober living home

After you gather this information, you can use it to move into the next phase of starting a sober living home guide. You need to evaluate your business’s current position and if there is a need for your business. From there, determine what your vision will be for your company. You’ll research your competitors and the prices they offer as well as the promotional marketing strategies they use to advertise their business.

Promote and market your sober living home

You might be wondering how long most people stay at a substance abuse halfway house or sober living home. After all, the idea isn’t to be there forever; the goal is to get you out into the world on your own terms. Each program will have a different policy when it comes to length of stay.

  • Many people benefit from residing in a sober living house after completing treatment, but you don’t have to make this decision alone.
  • You should list the information an individual will need to provide during the application process, which can be anything from identification to proof of residency and references.
  • LegitScript is a third-party certification that demonstrates Footprints complies with all applicable laws and regulations, including our ongoing commitment to transparency.
  • D) Does not provide any medical or clinical services or medication administration on-site, except for verification of abstinence.

Since our founding in 1961, Harris House has grown to become a top-rated non-profit treatment center. While there isn’t an exact length of time that everyone should stay in one of these programs, you definitely shouldn’t leave before you’re ready. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 90 days of treatment is a fair general starting point for people beginning a recovery journey, regardless of treatment type. However, this is dependent on the type of substance use disorder at hand, and NIDA also recommends longer treatment for seeing lasting positive results. The basic idea is that you shouldn’t try to get out of treatment as quickly as you can; you’re not going to see those positive outcomes if you don’t stay in treatment long enough for your specific needs. To answer the question of “how do sober living homes work” doesn’t really require splitting hairs between these different types of residences, so we’ve elected to treat them as one collective type of program.

The typical duration is three months, but residents can stay up to 12 months or longer. Residents are often required to take drug tests and demonstrate efforts toward long-term recovery. SLHs catering solely to young people are known as Sober Colleges. Private owners usually own these homes, but charities and businesses may also own sober living houses. If you live in a recovery house, you may either have your own room or share one with a roommate. Most of the time, residents share communal spaces, like kitchens, living rooms, and backyards.

We found that giving new residents their first week at no charge helped. Tenants have the option to pay weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, with a slight discount given for tenants who pay bi-weekly and monthly. House Selecting the Most Suitable Sober House for Addiction Recovery managers have key copies to every room in the house and are in charge of collecting rent at property assigned. I then Collect all sober living fees Saturday morning from all the houses and deposit in the bank.

Fairly often, people hit me up for advice on opening and running a recovery house. What they may not realize is that it could be considered another form of special needs housing. Ask yourself how you’ll determine if a person should reside in your house.