This commentary is by Tom Dalton of Essex Junction, executive director of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform. He is a lawyer and a licensed alcohol and drug counselor.
A big spike in overdose deaths in Vermont and a new awareness of the importance of continuous housing in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis is leading many to take a fresh look at sober housing practices.
Vermont Department of Corrections officials are calling for an important change of approach.
In a recent document, corrections officials cited internal data showing that zero tolerance rules at sober houses are resulting in unnecessary incarceration. To improve outcomes, they want sober houses to stop kicking people out and instead focus on making sure that tenants who struggle have continuous access to stable housing and recovery support.
Corrections officials say they want sober houses to use harm reduction, restorative justice and trauma-informed approaches that avoid subjecting vulnerable tenants to unnecessary harm.
This new corrections approach should spark important sober housing reforms.
Currently, Vermont sober houses often evict tenants who experience a recurrence of their substance use disorder without complying with standard eviction procedures required by law.
These wrongful evictions are often facilitated by police or corrections staff who assist in forcibly removing tenants from their homes without court authorization.
Many such tenants have no safe place to go and are immediately homeless or incarcerated for lack of residence. Some seek shelter from a drug-using friend, return to an abusive partner or become victims of sex trafficking.
Removal from a sober house often destabilizes people including in terms of employment, mental health, parenting and — of course — housing. Removal from safe housing often increases the severity of a relapse and delays a return to sobriety. Overdose risk skyrockets.
“At 11 at night, they gave me 15 minutes to pack my stuff and figure out a ride,” recalls one tenant. “I told them I have nowhere safe to go, man.” He was able to stay with a friend for a few nights but says, “Within a couple of days I was homeless and back using on the streets again.”
When tenants in crisis are forced from their homes with no safe place to go, desperate families and overburdened state programs are left to pick up the pieces, including hospitals, emergency housing programs and prisons.
Some policy leaders have come to recognize that this is no way to run an effective, recovery-oriented system of specialized housing for people living with substance use disorder and they say the time has come for change.
We know that relapse is a normal part of the recovery process. This means that all tenants in sober houses are at risk of relapse. Until we protect tenants who relapse from forced ejection to unsafe settings like homelessness or incarceration, nobody in the house is safe.
Vermonters need sober houses to offer their tenants a safe, caring community that rallies to protect those who struggle. Vermonters need sober houses that are willing and able to respond to relapse in a way that supports recovery and keeps people safe.
According to the Vermont Department of Corrections, “Ensuring people are not evicted for program violations is critical to reducing recidivism, homelessness, and other negative outcomes.”
Corrections leaders are now requiring sober houses they fund to “describe how provisions will be made to prevent (discharging) existing residents to homelessness or prison due to program violations.”
Given the devastating effects of unnecessary incarceration on individuals and their children and the high cost of incarceration to taxpayers, it is a question we should all be asking. But it is not just a question for sober house operators.
We need our policy leaders to reject negligent practices that knowingly put people in harm’s way and instead take action to build community capacity to keep sober house tenants safely and continuously housed, especially when they need it most.
As introduced, legislative bill H.211 would endorse and codify the unsafe (and currently unlawful) practice of subjecting sober house tenants to sudden removal from their homes, without judicial process or oversight. The bill would strip a particularly stigmatized and marginalized class of disabled tenants of standard eviction protections.
Legislators should soundly reject this approach.
Instead, legislators should task the Vermont Agency of Human Services with creating a statewide safety net for individuals who need safe, temporary housing and recovery stabilization services. Legislators should consider appropriating some of the federal resources earmarked to respond to the overdose crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic to build this safety net over the next two years.
Federal and state laws protecting people with disabilities, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act, cover individuals in recovery from substance use disorder, recognizing them as disabled persons in need of enhanced legal protection.
Legislators should use extreme caution and restraint in taking away important existing legal protections from disabled tenants and move forward only after ensuring that vulnerable tenants will be kept safe.