[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 166 (Friday, October 5, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1368-E1369]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONSTITUENT COMMENTS ON SOBER LIVING HOME PROBLEMS
______
HON. DANA ROHRABACHER
of california
in the house of representatives
Friday, October 5, 2018
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to inform my colleagues about
the hearing held by the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and
Civil Justice on September 28, 2018 on the issue of sober living homes.
I had the privilege of testifying at that hearing in support of my
bill, H.R. 5724, to restore local oversight over sober living homes. As
part of that testimony, I submitted to the Subcommittee letters from
many of my constituents about problems with sober living homes caused
by current federal law preventing appropriate local oversight. For the
benefit of my colleagues and the American people, I include in the
Record the first group of these constituent letters below:
Generally speaking, Mr. Rohrabacher, you're not someone I
feel represents me as a constituent. However, this is one
topic I agree with you on, and I never thought I'd say that.
I've seen the sober living home industry firsthand. They
exploit the desperation of addicts and their families, offer
no real help, and when the addict relapses, they are kicked
to the curb the same day and don't get prorated their rent
money. If they paid for a month and get kicked out 3 days
later, they lose all that money. It's actually more
profitable for sober livings to have high failure rates
because when the next person moves in, they effectively get
paid twice for the bed; the forfeited rent and the new
person's. The sober living home doesn't concern itself with
whether or not the people they evict have somewhere to go.
It's not surprising that many end up on the streets. Many
sober living homes are poorly maintained, have bug
infestations, are overcrowded, and residents regularly
experience theft and violence. If the purpose of a sober
living is to give someone a fresh start and chance at
redemption, which it should be, then the sober living home
industry has failed miserably, and that failure has proven
lucrative for those who profit from human suffering. More
accountability is needed, addicts are people like everyone
else, and deserve better.
Stephanie Ashley Larcome,
Westminster, California.
____
About a year ago my small block of mostly retirees was
introduced to ``sober living homes''. We were also introduced
to loss of parking due to various vehicles with out of state
plates, frequent local police responses, discarded needles,
altercations both verbal and physical and loud music in the
wee hours of the morning. Then the non-sober behavior
escalated to the overdose and death of 24-year-old Mark
Vallas of Chicago on February 24th, 2018. In March 2018, Tim
Flinn, the co-owner of New Existence Recovery, which managed
the sober living home where Mark Vallas died also overdosed
and also died. On July 23rd, four squad cars, a fire truck
and ambulance responded to yet another overdose at the same
house. Last week a house three houses down from the initial
sober living home converted to a sober living home. Last
week, police responded to a call regarding the new sober
living home. And two days later the Huntington Beach Police
Department responded yet again. The current scenario of
unregulated and unsupervised residences for addicts is not
working. How many more addicts must die as local governments
are threatened with lawsuits in an attempt to protect the
health and welfare of all? Please take action and support
corrective legislation. Thank you.
Patricia Anne Quintana,
Huntington Beach, California.
____
We were the unfortunate neighbors of a sober-living home a
few years ago. The occupants were a source of constant
nuisance and criminal activity. My children couldn't play
outside in our backyard due to the constant, heavy cigarette
smoke and loud profanity coming from the residents. These
homes don't belong in residential neighborhoods.
Anne DeBie,
Costa Mesa, California.
____
I have lived at this address for 12 years. I have lived in
this neighborhood for 27 years. In that time, I have seen
cars be broken into at night. If cars are left unlocked, they
are ransacked and items taken such as electronic devices.
This is routine and typical. Clearly it has increased over
the years as more and more people come to the area for
treatment and fail. This is a residential neighborhood and
not a treatment/medical facility designated area. These homes
are not normal by housing multiple adults that would
typically have one or two residents in the same space
otherwise. We need to stop encouraging such a huge influx of
individuals into the community that don't have jobs, family
or a productive reason for being here. It creates a huge
burden on the city and its residents.
Sheila Cimini,
Costa Mesa, California.
____
I am a physician in Laguna Beach and my area and many
others around me are inundated with sober living homes.
Unscrupulous property owners are making a fortune housing
these individuals, many recruited from out of state. I am
sympathetic to these people and their problems, (as I have
experienced the pain of addiction in my own family). However,
many of these individuals seem largely unsupervised, hang out
in groups around local businesses and our beautiful beaches
smoking and making these areas less desirable for children,
locals and tourists. Once their coverage ends, (if they have
not overdosed in these homes) they are dumped onto the street
in my area and continue on as homeless. I very much would
like to see out of state addicts stay out of state and the
rapacious profits these homeowners make destroying my
neighborhood ended.
James Russell, M.D.,
Laguna Beach, California.
____
A detox/sober living home went in across the street from me
over 3 years ago. At the time my boys were 7 and 10. Too
young to learn about drugs and inappropriate adult behavior.
Since then, there have and continues to be: puking, fighting,
patient dumping in front of my house, drugs being delivered
to my house, medical supplies in front of my house,
intimidation of residents and staff towards my children,
we've almost been hit 3 times by staff and delivery persons
while in my driveway, ambulances and firetrucks all hours of
day and night, my house has been entered 3 times, my car
broken into 2 times, my children cannot play out front from
the amount of cars, over 20 or more all day and night, drug
deliveries on a regular basis including 2 a.m., parking
issues, women walking around naked, cars parked with
strangers watching my children, blocking of street, residents
coming back with knives and kept outside endangering all the
neighbors, house not being taken care of and endangering
others with hanging roof parts in howling wind, U-turns 24
hours a day aimed at my house, my children and me, parking in
front of my driveway blocking my cars, enormous trash with
all the vermin that goes with it, blocking of fire hydrant
every day, screaming arguing women out front with foul
language in front of my children, unknown amounts of addicts
visiting residents and house while using my driveway and
staring at my children, runaway cars with no drivers, drug
dealers approaching me after school with children, men
leaving the house through side doors in the middle of the
night, volatile women coming and going scaring my
children, boyfriends of staff coming and going all hours
of the night, the residents have no air conditioning in
extreme weather, no backup generator for power outages in
cold weather, a regular hole in the front door, broken
windows from storms, fire and rattlesnake hazard by not
having regular yard maintenance, code violations from the
city, drinking. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week businesses
that cater to convicted criminals do not belong in
residential neighborhoods just doors down from a middle
school, a most vulnerable population. Businesses do not
belong in neighborhoods at all. We moved here and paid
millions to keep our children away from drugs, not to have
them enter our house and have us living in fear. Have you
ever had someone just walk into your home while you are
with your family enjoying your Sunday afternoon or having
Sunday dinner to the sound of puking out your front door?
The fear that someone can walk into your home on drugs and
fully high is paralyzing. Police cannot handle people high
on drugs and they are trained and have weapons. Not once,
not twice, but 3 times my house has been entered by a drug
addict, a very scary staff person and a man trying to
deliver dangerous meds in front of my children who would
have died if ingested. I was told by the owner that they
had insurance for that type of thing. Can you imagine
losing your child or having them permanently injured but
they have insurance? All in what was a safe neighborhood.
No one locked their doors now we spend hundreds on
security
[[Page E1369]]
cameras and lock our doors just to go to another room to
do laundry in case someone decides to enter your house.
Just last week a woman was outside yelling at a parked car
about her situation. We had to hide in the house and be
quiet because she might jump the fence and harm us if we
were too noisy. I have boys. They are active. We have to
modify our lives and have done for years. No playing out
front without supervision. They are now 10 and 13. How sad
to have lost part of their childhood. The workers talk
very loudly about the residents and their private health
problems right outside my door. They have special drivers
that deliver some of the residents like they are at a
hotel. Staff and residents are constantly changing, and
they are not locals. How many of your neighbors move in
and out daily? It's unnerving.
Diane Babcock,
Laguna Beach, California.
____
I was driving home from getting breakfast at 6 a.m. on a
Sunday morning. As I was stopped at a light I could see a
young man in the area of a Bank of America shooting up drugs.
I drove over to him and yelled at him to put that down and to
stop doing drugs in public where kids can see him. He
immediately put down whatever he was doing. I asked if he was
hungry and he said he was. I gave him half of my sandwich. I
asked him why he was out here and doing this. He said he went
home and was high and they kicked him out of his sober living
house a few days ago. They always end up on the streets if
they fail their program. I've seen several times where sober
living is failing these people and they seem to be worse off
than when they lived around their family and friends and now
have no way to get back home.
Ada Thornton,
Costa Mesa, California.
____
Yes, there are problems with facilities that are not
licensed. There are many that are though and are trying to
help these people. I work at a facility in Huntington Beach,
we are licensed with the state and certified with the Joint
Commission. I'm the program director and deal mostly with our
licensing. The problem with local governments that I've seen
attempting to deal with the ``problem'' is that they try and
shut down all the facilities, even the good ones trying to
actually help. If the good facilities are forced to move out
of neighborhoods, where would we go? Industrial areas aren't
zoned to have people living there and the cost of having to
lease a building and construct it to accommodate living
facilities would put us out of business and other good
facilities as well, meaning lots of people losing their jobs.
There are many levels of care to the treatment process and
the ``sober living'' you speak of is actually the lowest
level of care, IOP, or a sober living is also just a house
that's rented out by people that are sober and aren't
actually affiliated with any kind of treatment program.
Again, I think this bill would adversely affect the
facilities that are trying to do the right things and help
these people. IOP ``sober living'' does not require any
licensing or certifications so they aren't held to any
standards of conduct. Residential detox and RTC levels of
care are. There needs to be a distinction between these in
the bill. Unlicensed verses licensed.
Josh Juroe,
Fountain Valley, California.
____
I'm writing regarding the sober living tragedy that is
plaguing our community. My family and I live in Huntington
Beach, CA aka ``Rehab Riviera'' and this is a direct result
of unethical body brokering into many sober living homes and
rehab recovery centers throughout Huntington Beach.
Prior to this new generation of entrepreneurs focusing on
the sick, weak, drug and alcohol addicted, this community was
like a Mayberry at the beach. Now, our community has become a
toxic waste of drug needles on the streets and across the
beaches, zombie like drug addicted sober living tenants
roaming at all hours of the night, burglaries, harassment,
fear to go to our local parks due to drug deals and
paraphernalia being constantly discovered and baggies of
drugs being left to be picked up and handed to me by my
children in the local grocery store parking lot.
This is a disgrace to our community and the situation is
not be addressed by our local law enforcement. I personally
have had several negative experiences with the tenants of the
sober living homes, the recovery centers and those that
decided to leave the unhealthy environments and live on the
streets of Huntington Beach. The police have been called and
they catch and release those that are clearly intoxicated
with paraphernalia on them but ``not enough'' to arrest the
person. My kids have picked up drug baggies and pointed at
dirty needles and ran home from the parks due to the amount
of ``left by the wayside dropouts'' from the recovery centers
and sober livings residing at the parks. Deaths have occurred
in the sober livings and my children's classmates have
witness the deceased being rolled out and into ambulances.
And to top it off, Wavelengths Recovery Center is based on
Main Street and the owner, Warren Boyd along with his
employees and ``patients'' cloak the street bringing their
riffraff, along with foul language, smoking and hanging about
in groups of at least 10 along Main Street, while they watch
their new multimillion dollar facility being built on the
corner of Main and Orange.
Is this what we want to show our children as a way of life,
is this what the tax payers are wanting in their community?
The answer is no! Wavelengths continues to buy up historical
properties just to tear them down and build multi-roomed
homes to maximize capacity for cash flow. It's unethical and
when the fire marshal shows up to check the facility they are
tipped off and take the overstock of people are relocate them
temporarily or on a field trip in one of the many white vans
that cruise through town aka ``druggie buggies''.
Or we can touch on the fraudulent activities that are being
handled between the insurance companies and these facilities.
What are you going to do to protect our families and put a
stop to these heinous acts that are plaguing this community
and many others around Southern California? The amount of
money that is being made off the transactions between
recovery centers, sober livings and privately owned detoxes
is astronomical and unacceptable. And has become a
misrepresented solution for those addicted.
I have many years of sobriety and once upon a time there
was a chance to have the freedom I have today. For those that
choose these facilities as a solution, there is a slim chance
to stay sober. Our local politicians and law enforcement are
not addressing this situation with any urgency and that is
why I'm expecting you to take action on a larger scale.
Please help us to restore safety to our community and remove
these facilities.
Thank you,
Robin Grisham,
Huntington Beach, California.
____
We live kitty corner to a sober living house. We are
constantly hearing dogs barking all night long. Several
attempts were made with the manager to solve this issue
however the dogs continue to bark. The residents of the
facility are still using drugs as they were found at the
school as well as selling drugs across the street from the
middle school. That particular incident led to the police
being called. The suspects ran through several backyards and
tried to break into a house down the street. After this
incident many residents including children are scared to
sleep in their own homes and are seriously considering on
moving. There are many children and elderly people in this
area who are easy prey to drug dealers and users. I have been
living here for 16 years and I am shocked that this type of
thing is happening in my backyard. Not only has my sleep
suffered I am having trouble concentrating at work. I am
afraid for my special needs son's safety because the suspect
ran through our backyard. If this continues people can get
hurt or lose their lives if it escalates. Please help us stop
the sober living houses from spreading. It is a scam. It
doesn't help the people who are addicted. It allows them a
safe place to continue to abuse drugs while stealing from the
insurance companies to pay for treatment. These sober living
houses only make the owner rich while exploiting those who
need help.
Jennifer Shields,
Huntington Beach, California.
____________________