Building Recovery: State Policy Guide for Supporting Recovery Housing

Recovery housing often operates outside the traditional addiction treatment and supportive housing systems. Sometimes this is by choice, but it’s also because the public sector has not broadly included this model in policies and resources. Because of this, and without codified recovery housing standards or protections, there have been inconsistencies in the quality of recovery housing, including substandard housing, insurance schemes and exploitative operators.

Recent news reports have brought these inconsistencies and abuses to light and demonstrate how some so-called recovery homes manipulate weaknesses in the system and the people who are trying to achieve long-term recovery. These bad actors not only risk harming the reputation and investment in the vast majority of high quality, effective recovery housing throughout the United States, but also intentionally send people back into a terrible, often deadly, cycle of addiction.