New York's rental market is absurdly expensive and it seems to be having an impact on sober homes for people to get treatment, including those coming back into society after being jailed.
According to The Crime Report, Suffolk County sought to pay $500 per resident for sober homes (which is $300 more than the state pays per resident), but one operator told the county that "'[f]ive hundred dollars is not going to cut it,' [Rosemary] Dehlow [chief program officer for Community Housing Innovations] said. 'Everything in this RFQ I believe in. You want solid housing; you want restrictions on certain things; you want to make sure they're clean.' But, Dehlow said, the legislation and the RFQ ignore the underlying void that sober homes have come to fill." She said that sober homes have 20 people in a house because it's affordable.
TCR, a publication affiliated with John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and ProPublica have been reporting on people who have died while living in sober homes. For example, one mother testified about her son overdosing on heroin despite living in a sober home, according to TCR.
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
