Letter: Federal Law Allows for Regulation of Sober Houses Such as on West Road in New Canaan

Like many towns, New Canaan has been caught by surprise by the arrival of a recovery house/sober house on West Road. As a result the town suffers from a near complete lack of regulation of sober houses. Please note that the courts have recognized that the rights of the disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act do not mean that sober houses cannot be regulated.

There have been at least five overdose deaths in Connecticut sober houses since 2014. It is unknown whether these tragic deaths were the result of the deadly pull of opioids or the lack of proper supervision and procedures within the sober house. What is known is that the lack of third-party oversight has made it difficult for neighboring families and Town officials to know much about sober houses, including who runs them and whether they actually provide a sober and safe environment for their residents.

Anyone can open a recovery house, including companies and individuals who know nothing about the drug and alcohol treatment field. No training is mandated. No background checks are compulsory. No government oversight is required. While Federal and State laws protect residents from housing discrimination, these laws do not regulate how sober houses operate, nor do they prohibit the regulation of the operation of the sober houses.

As NPR reported on Oct. 4: “But private sober houses aren’t regulated by the state, and experts in the field say some houses don’t enforce their own sobriety rules—which can jeopardize the safety of the people that live there and the neighborhood the house is in. … experts say, that many privately-owned houses don’t always enforce sobriety rules. And that puts other residents at risk for relapse, and many times fatal overdose.”

A Pennsylvania Task Force released a proposal to create a certification process for recovery houses, a proposal that should serve as a model for New Canaan. The rules are extensive, as they should be, but they are sensible and will promote the safety and wellbeing of the residents of sober houses and their neighbors. I urge [town councilmen and selectmen] to consider their adoption by New Canaan so that alcohol and addiction recovery houses, which truly have the lives of their residents at stake, will be regulated for the first time.

Importantly, the Task Force was composed of a broad range of interests: law enforcement representatives, recovery house operators, drug treatment providers, advocates, recovery support groups and county and state drug and alcohol service agencies. The group met over 18 months to draft standards to address issues such as the ADA, consumer protection, discriminatory practices and community concerns.

The rules require a definition of recovery residences, building standards, an ethics code and minimum policies and procedures for operating recovery homes. Here are examples of the policies. I would think that the Town would want any recovery house that operates in New Canaan to comply with them, and any well-run recovery house would want to adopt them:

• Identification of person/operator responsible for oversight of the house, including name, address and contact information, available for inspection
• Criminal history background check of house operator, employees, house officers and house owner
• To avoid conflicts, no operator or employee will offer, solicit, pay or receive commissions, rebates, fees, etc., in cash or in kind, to induce referrals of patient, whether incoming or outgoing
• All employees and operators will have had 18 to 24 months of sustained recovery
  Written reports to authorities of unusual incidents within 48 hours including:
  • Death, overdose or a suicide attempt of a resident in a recovery house.
  • Physical assault
  • Sexual assault
  • Outbreak of a contagious disease or food poisoning among residents
  • Serious crime
  • A condition that results in closure of the recovery house for more than one day of operation
• Accept residents only after appropriate assessment and placement into treatment to address their substance use issues
• Accept residents only from licensed drug and alcohol treatment providers or other qualified referral source
• Adequate documentation of medical, drug and alcohol history, including substances most frequently abused, to permit adequate monitoring and proper care
• No clinical tor therapeutic interventions without required licenses
• No non-therapeutic dual relationships between owners, employees operators and any resident for 2 years post residency
• Residents will be case managed to ensure both treatment and ancillary service needs are being addressed and monitored
• Where more than housing is providing, written recovery plan, updated regularly, delineating services, support and treatment used to assist the resident in recovery.
• Intensive documentation of services to be provided, treatment plan, etc.
• Comprehensive policies on self-administration of drugs used by residents, including rules on controlled substances, secure storage, safe disposal, prohibitions on sharing, inspections, etc.
• Require the availability of Narcan for use within the house in case of an overdose.

It is unknown whether the new sober house on West Road complies with any of these sensible policies. I urge the Town to quickly address this problem, both in the interest of the Town and for the benefit of the residents of the sober houses.

Sincerely, Richard Bourgeois