Well, I take it from Mr. Fleischman’s ongoing posts on the topic of Senator Harman’s SB 1000, a that ended its life in committee recently, that he is itching for a debate on the topic. I somehow think that Jon would be less zealous in his position if it were his property value being quashed, but all the same here we go…

Many inaccuracies concerning sober living homes (SLH’s) come from the misconception that a SLH is anything with six beds or under.  This is not the case.  A SLH has nothing to do with the number of beds but rather with the services offered.  A SLH is a SLH if it has 10 people in it – not just “six and under.”    

By way of explanation, there are three types of facilities: treatment, maintenance and sober living homes.  Treatment and maintenance facilities offer detoxification, educational counseling, individual or group counseling sessions and treatment or recovery planning.  These facilities, unlike SLH’s, are authorized to receive public funds.  A SLH offers none of these services and are basically the “last stop” before a person who has gone through successful treatment and maintenance successfully re-enters society.  Currently only treatment facilities are subject to licensing and oversight by the state and that is what the crux of SB 1000 seeks to address – requiring licensing and oversight for maintenance facilities because of the types of services that are offered. 

Another problem with existing law is that there are currently no density requirements for treatment or maintenance facilities.  This leaves the door wide open for abuse by operators and frankly this type of exception isn’t allowed with regards to any other type of facility. 

This is why the amended version of SB 1000 has adopted the approach currently used without complaint of discrimination for community care facilities.    Under current law, community care facilities – those facilities that provide services to persons with mental or physical disabilities – are subject to density standards exactly like those contained in SB 1000.  Most notably, it states that it is the policy of the Legislature to avoid over concentration of treatment, maintenance and sober living homes (the inclusion of SLH’s was a drafting error by leg counsel and will be amended out).  It then defines over concentration.  Senator Harman’s bill seeks to extend these density standards to treatment and maintenance facilities, not SLH’s.  Unfortunately, what came back from Leg. Counsel was not exactly what they requested in that it includes the sober living homes and neglects to include the following (page 12, line 17 after “neighborhoods.”):  “Therefore the director shall deny an application for a new alcoholism or drug abuse recovery maintenance facility or adult recovery maintenance facility if the director determines that the location is in a proximity to an existing facility that would result in over concentration.”  Since the bill is only prospective, if enacted, this language would have had no effect on existing treatment and maintenance facilities. 

After reading this, you’ll probably notice that I have yet to discuss what SB 1000 does with regards to SLH’s.  That is kind of the point – because SLH’s are provided so much protection under both Federal and State law, there isn’t much that can be done. 

What SB 1000 does do with regards to SLH’s is two-fold:

1) Where we start is by defining what a sober living home is.  Arguably, the definition that they got back from Leg. Counsel didn’t come back the way Harman’s office had requested but due to Committee deadline for amendments they had to submit it as is.  For example, as you brought up in your posting, the language allowing law enforcement to check the records of testing is incorrect in that it completely left out the requirement that law enforcement have probable cause and that will be fixed.  However, they didn’tfeel any of the additional requirements for a sober living home are “regulatory hurdles” as what they basically say is that if you are going to hold yourself out in the community as a sober living home, you better be able to prove it.  If the facility can’t do these minimal things then perhaps they do need to be licensed as either a treatment or maintenance facility because of the type of care they are providing. 

Page 7, Beginning on Page 21:

(1)  Residents must be recovering from alcohol or drug abuse
(2)  Residents actively participate in programs for drug/alcohol abuse
(3)  Zero tolerance regarding consumption of drug/alcohol
(4)  Random drug/alcohol testing performed by the manager/operator available for inspection by law enforcement with probable cause (as proposed to be amended)
(5)  No services are being provided that would best be performed in either a treatment/maintenance facility that is subject to state oversight
(6)  No resident requires nonmedical care or supervision
(7)  Residents are responsible for their own meals.   
(8)  Owner/operator/resident ensure property use complies with applicable laws

2)  Registration – It seems that there is a split of opinion as to whether there is any problem with over concentration of SLH’s.  By requiring a simple registration process where the state can establish some formal tabulation of just how many SLH’s exist and their proximity to one another, it seems this would be a good first step.  Everyone is relying on someone else’s word on whether there is or isn’t an issue with SLH’s.  Once we have some hard facts to look at, if there is an issue, we can then look at addressing it with legislation in the future.  Please note that the registration process is the simplest they could make it – basically just requiring that when a new facility opens they tell the state that it is doing so and the address.

[Publisher’s Note: Duane, I reformatted this post which you pasted in as a Word document, from the original document that Harman’s staff provided.  I had it but appreciate your forming it into a blog post.  More information is better – Flash]

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.