Addiction epidemic fuels runaway demand for 'sober homes'

CHICAGO (AP) — The nation's epidemic of addiction to painkillers and heroin is fueling runaway demand for a once-obscure form of housing known as "sober homes," where recovering addicts live together in a supervised, substance-free setting to ease their transition back to independence.

"The ones that are good are fantastic," said Pam Rodriguez, CEO of Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, an Illinois nonprofit working to reduce prison time for nonviolent drug offenders.

After a scam involving inflated insurance claims for sober home residents, the Florida Legislature last year adopted a law effectively requiring certification of homes that receive patients from licensed rehab centers.

Some proposals would require owners to undergo background checks, to refund money in some circumstances and to make inspection reports available to consumers.

"In most states, there is not a regulatory body because recovery residences aren't considered treatment," said Amy Mericle, a scientist at Alcohol Research Group, a California nonprofit that studies alcohol and drug addiction.

Justin First, a 46-year-old recovering addict now in his eighth sober home, recalled seeing people drinking beer on the front porch on the day he arrived at one residence in 2012 in Delray Beach, Florida.

Residents, crowded up to 10 to a bedroom, were required to attend Medicaid-funded outpatient treatment or be evicted from Narco's network of Freedom Houses, which an indictment alleged were being used as "private piggy bank" by the owners.

In Florida, some unethical operators recruit residents so they can conduct expensive urine testing covered by insurance, said John Lehman of the Florida Association of Recovery Residences, which represents sober homes in a state that's a hotbed for addiction treatment centers.

In a small apartment building on Chicago's South Side, sober home resident Darnell Johnson, a parolee from the Illinois prison sys