Recovery homes adjusting to aid cuts

A year ago, Pennsylvania cut funding for cash assistance, a welfare program that provided a couple of hundred dollars a month to impoverished people dealing with addiction, sickness, disability, or domestic violence.

At the time, activists offered apocalyptic warnings of the consequences. They anticipated rising homelessness, crime, and the collapse of an unofficial housing system estimated to serve up to 4,000 people in the city alone.

They are known as recovery residences - group homes for people recovering from drug and alcohol addictions.

The situation now is not as dire as predicted. Some homes closed, but "it hasn't been all bleak," said Fred Way, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Recovery Residences, a two-year-old network working to certify the homes. "We thought more houses would close down."

Instead, most have adapted and changed their financial model. The shifts are shedding light on a formerly shadowy housing economy.

Cash assistance was the bedrock of up to 500 houses, most in North Philadelphia. The precise number is unknown because they are largely unregulated.

The homes are not treatment facilities but offer a sober living environment, usually with rules and community support.

Recovery-house owners - often people with memories of their own addictions and a passion to give back - helped residents sign up, and took most of the $205 benefit as rent. Residences typically house 12 to 14 people, so they scraped by, pooling welfare and food stamps.

Now, many charge rent - typically $65 to $150 per week - and people must find a way to pay, either through unemployment, disability, or Social Security benefits if they are eligible, or they have to work. The association also has been implementing standards and certifying homes with the hope of connecting them to state and city funding.

Leona Leonard's residence in West Philadelphia, Women of Transformation, is decorated with bright flowers and inspirational messages.

The women pay between nothing and $450 a month. Several had received cash assistance. When it was cut, "we had to adjust, put in more hours in our jobs, get our families to support us," Leonard said. She ran small fund-raisers, including regular porch sales, but mostly she has invested her own money - $50,000 - in the house since opening it two years ago, she said.

She is now working with the association toward certification. Requirements range from proper zoning as a boardinghouse to creating a vision statement.

The group has certified 11 homes and has 29 in the process. Way, the director, hopes to publicize certified houses to make them the go-to referrals for treatment centers connecting patients with housing.

Way is fighting a two-front battle. He is trying to reduce the not-in-my-backyard stigma that recovery residences face while improving them so they don't earn their negative reputation.

"I think that people don't know the difference between addiction and recovery," said Amy Mericle, a researcher at Philadelphia's Treatment Research Institute who works with the group and is studying the city's recovery houses.

"No one wants to have addicts living in their community. But people in recovery homes are people who are not wanting to be addicts. They are people who are wanting to turn their lives around."

Still, Way acknowledges a few bad houses: "I find it very hard sometimes to go to a recovery house, and the house needs a lot of work done, but then the owner for the house has a 2013 Cadillac truck."

He said he had gotten four complaints about houses this year and called the city. But he is doggedly optimistic.

"The conversation now isn't about how bad the houses are," he said. "It's about how can we make the houses better."

The city has mostly agreed. It funds residents in 31 homes, and also gave the association a grant.

Roland Lamb, director of the office of addiction services, emphasized the houses' role in the city's community-based recovery care.

"If we see ourselves as communities of recovery, we should see an increased role for recovery residences," he wrote in an e-mail.

The Affordable Care Act may help, too. A recent Associated Press analysis found that 3 million to 5 million people dealing with addiction nationally will become newly eligible for health insurance. New Jersey, which has far fewer recovery houses than Philadelphia does, is expanding Medicaid, but Pennsylvania is not. So, New Jerseyans will likely see more increased access to care.

The ACA does not include funding specifically for recovery residences, but demand is likely to increase as more people seek treatement. Way's association is waiting for the law to be implemented next year to see how the houses might benefit.

Despite the progress and the overall survival story since cash assistance ended on Aug. 1, 2012, many owners worry the advances are unsustainable.

"In the next year, there will be a few more closings," Way predicted.

Bryan Dixon used to run six houses, but they all shut down by June.

When he opened the homes, "the individuals received welfare. That paid the costs of the recovery," Dixon said. "When they cut the welfare, it really took a toll."