In CT and all across the nation, a lack of state and federal restrictions for owners of sober living has contributed to some pretty bad outcomes. Deaths in some of the city’s sober homes–the most recent one being in May–have put some residential recovery facilities as well as their owners into the news and media for all the wrong reasons.
As part of what everyone hopes becomes a larger push to crack down on bad landlords entering the recovery house industry for the wrong reasons, Michael Venghaus and Richard Weigold, of Northwest Sobriety want to start policing local sober homes.
These efforts would include things such as random inspections of living situations and a website that would act as a certified registry of safe sober home living in the city.
Venghaus and Weigold went public with their plan to launch a website and form a sober house enforcement arm Tuesday at a meeting of the Torrington-Winsted Rotary Club at P-Sams Torrington.
They said it’s a necessary step since there just isn’t enough political pull at a statewide or even national level to convince lawmakers of the need for sweeping changes to how sober houses operate.
The initiative is the brainchild of the Connecticut Alliance for Recovery Residences, affiliated with Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery.
How this plan will work is still being figured out they said and further meetings are necessary before anything is finalized.
In the least, the group is looking to improve the quality of life and safety for recovering addicts to transitioning back into “mainstream” society following deaths that cast aspersions on the local recovery housing industry.
In Torrington, Venghaus said, anyone can purchase a home and turn it into a sober house. There is no way for city officials to track the number of sober houses that have popped up in the past years since recovery facilities are covered by federal law that outlaw discrimination.
CCAR estimates that there are probably around 160 sober houses in the state, only a quarter of those certified by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
The problem is really bad in Torrington, Venghaus said, with at least two deaths at a cluster of sober homes owned by the group Torrington Sober Houses. Often, other suspected overdose deaths in the city go unnoticed, and there’s no way to keep track of how many have occurred the last year at sober homes.
Speaking from experience, Venghaus said residents are most vulnerable their first month in a sober home as they manage freedom they didn’t have while in structured rehabilitation facilities. And this is when they need the most support. Unfortunately at these start up sober homes they aren’t getting it.
The hope is that owners of sober homes will adopt a standard for house rules across Connecticut. And that unsavory landlords weed themselves out of Torrington.