CLOSER LOOK -- Homing in on sober living

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- City officials will look Tuesday to a county program to

help loosen the knots they say are tied tight around their hands

regarding sober-living homes.

A county certification program -- four years in the making -- has been

developed by a multi-jurisdictional task force in the hopes that it will

help officials more closely monitor sober-living facilities. The Planning

Commission is scheduled to vote on the certification guidelines at

Tuesday’s meeting.

The Board of Supervisors approved the Orange County Adult and Alcohol

and Drug Sober Living Facilities Certification process in December and it

will go into affect in October, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Fred

Lisanti, who helped develop the process.

The program requires county certification for any sober-living

facility that wants business from the county -- from the courts or

probation department. Certification is voluntary, Lisanti said, but

without it, homes will lose out on business.

Elizabeth Henderson, an assistant district attorney at the Harbor

Justice Center, agreed.

“If a judge orders [someone to go to a sober-living home], there has

to be a way for the court to know a little about the place,” Henderson

said. “The court can have a little more faith that these places are

actually helping people get sober and therefore deterring future

criminality.”

Perry Valantine, Costa Mesa’s director of planning, said city

officials are anxious for the program to kick in. The planning department

has recommended the commission adopt the certification guidelines.

“We are hoping it will give us a little better handle on the [the

group home problem] and address some of the issues,” he said.

Calling Costa Mesa home

According to a 2001 report, Costa Mesa hosts 106 “group homes,” a

designation that includes foster and elder care facilities, sober-living

homes and drug and alcohol treatment centers.

Sober-living homes have been an especially sore spot for city

officials in recent years. Costa Mesa houses 21 sober living-homes, the

2001 report states, all of which offer no medical treatment and are

therefore exempt from state licensing.

City officials are further frustrated by the fact that state law

severely limits local regulation of group homes. If a group home does not

offer medical assistance or any type of therapy and has six or fewer

residents, it is exempt from city control, Valantine said. Fourteen Costa

Mesa sober-living homes serve six people or less, the report states.

Admittedly, not all the homes are problematic, Valantine said, but

there are those that have been the subject of numerous complaints. Last

summer, the city cracked down on eight such facilities, including

pressing misdemeanor charges on the owner of a sober-living home on

Orange Avenue for allegedly operating in a residential zone.

Valantine said he hopes the county certification program will help the

city tighten the reins without having to wage a court battle.

Neighborly thing to do

The certification process includes a “good neighbor policy” that

encourages sober-living facilities to deal directly with complaints in

order to foster better relationships with neighbors.

Policy suggestions include: making sure neighboring residents know

exactly who to contact regarding complaints; that staff members know how

to receive and file complaints; and that, if legitimate, the home take

immediate steps to remedy identified problems.

The voluntary program also allows for monitoring, including

inspections at least once during each certification period or at any

other “reasonable time” to ensure certification guidelines are being

followed, the report states.

Although it is a county-sponsored program, Lisanti said cities would

share the burden and monitor their own sober-living homes. Data collected

by city officials would be transferred to the sheriff’s department, where

additional positions have been created to administer the program, he

said.

Legitimate sober-living homes should have no problem adhering to the

county guidelines, Lisanti said.

“When you look at these guidelines, you can see that they eliminate

about 90% of the problems that you see in sober-living homes,” Lisanti

said.

Henderson said the certification process aims to eradicate homes that

use the sober-living home moniker as a guise and run flop houses.

“We don’t want people opening up a sober-living home and then dealing

drugs out the back door,” Henderson said. “A lot of these places are run

by former addicts, and that is great; we just don’t want them run by

current ones.”

Getting the right treatment

Jeff Yates, the manager of Morningside Recovery, a Newport Beach-based

business that recently bought an apartment complex in the 1700 block of

Orange Avenue with plans to convert it into a sober-living home,

confirmed the existence of such “flop houses.”

While Morningside Recovery provides a very structured, sober

environment, Yates said he is well aware of industry colleagues who do

not.

“There are those out there and they fly under the radar,” Yates said.

“They are like frat houses for drug addicts.”

Yates expressed interest in applying for the county certification

program. He said it is always best to cover all the bases and make sure

the home doesn’t lose out on business.

Morningside Recovery is not as concerned with getting court-appointed

clients as it is assuring its clients that the recovery home is endorsed

by the court or probation system, Yates said.

“If one of our clients’ lawyers sends them here while they are

awaiting a court date, we want them to know that they can go into that

court saying they’ve just spend X amount of time in a court-OKed

program,” Yates explained. “More often than not, a judge will apply that

time as time spent. But not if you’re not on their list.”

Yates, an industry veteran, said the certification process sounds like

a solid idea but questioned the impact it would have on Costa Mesa.

Previously, city officials have pointed to Proposition 36 -- which

passed in November of 2000 and allows certain drug and alcohol offenders

to seek rehabilitation instead of jail time -- as the source of a recent

surge of group homes in Costa Mesa. Yates disagreed, saying the city has

always been a hotbed for sober-living facilities.

Sober-living homes are popular in high-income areas where recreational

drugs are popular. When family members discover a drug addiction, they

have plenty of money to shell out to sober their loved one up, he said.

Therefore, group homes have done well in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and

Huntington Beach.

And when high-income people get caught in illegal drug or alcohol

activity, they have high-priced lawyers who can get them out of serving

jail time and into a recovery home instead.

“Proposition 36 just allows people with lower incomes the opportunity

to do what rich people were doing anyway,” Yates said. “People have

always had the opportunity to go to a treatment home instead of jail; you

just had to have a lawyer to do it.”

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .