Sober Living Homes Need Accountability

In Clark County, at any giv­en time, there are 8 to10 sober liv­ing res­i­dences in oper­a­tion. There have been more at times. Sober liv­ing homes can be an impor­tant part of recov­ery from addic­tion. But we have all seen things begun with the best of inten­tions that begin to go bad­ly. Medicaid expan­sion in Kentucky was a pos­i­tive step to make treat­ment avail­able to indi­vid­u­als suf­fer­ing from sub­stance use dis­or­der and result­ed in more treat­ment beds and ser­vices being available.

In past years, as the opi­oid epi­dem­ic raged on, it claimed lives in our com­mu­ni­ty, state, and nation­wide. Professionals and indi­vid­u­als in recov­ery devised plans and treat­ment options to curb deaths and to restore suf­fer­ing indi­vid­u­als to their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty. It became appar­ent that 21 to 30 days of inpa­tient treat­ment was not enough to give peo­ple the tools need­ed to stay clean and sober. Thus, a con­tin­uüm of care mod­el evolved. This mod­el includes detox, inpa­tient treat­ment, peer sup­port ser­vices, inten­sive out­pa­tient treat­ment (IOP), and recov­ery hous­ing. Any com­bi­na­tion of these ser­vices, or all of them, may be indi­cat­ed depend­ing on an individual’s cir­cum­stances and his­to­ry. It is also impor­tant to include harm reduc­tion mea­sures, which often lead peo­ple to seek treat­ment. (You can’t treat peo­ple if they are dead.)  Additional ser­vices such as indi­vid­ual and/or fam­i­ly ther­a­py, med­ical and psy­chi­atric treat­ment, and med­ica­tion for opi­oid use dis­or­der (MOUD) can also play a part in recovery. 

These devel­op­ments led to a rapid rise in the num­ber of sober liv­ing or recov­ery res­i­dences in our com­mu­ni­ty and through­out Kentucky. Ideally, these homes offer safe, afford­able hous­ing with oth­er indi­vid­u­als in ear­ly recov­ery, are peer-led, and encour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion in recov­ery ser­vices and pro­grams in the com­mu­ni­ty. They encour­age and usu­al­ly require res­i­dents to obtain employ­ment and charge a nom­i­nal fee for rent. This mod­el began as a means to help indi­vid­u­als in recov­ery re-inte­grate into the com­mu­ni­ty and receive suf­fi­cient sup­port to over­come bar­ri­ers such as crim­i­nal records, a lack of fam­i­ly and friend sup­port, and a lack of a con­sis­tent work his­to­ry. Sounds help­ful, right?

Things began to go south when oper­a­tors began to include some clin­i­cal ser­vices, such as IOP, in the recov­ery res­i­dence set­ting and to bill Medicaid for them. The own­ers who are direct­ing peo­ple to live in these homes are unli­censed. For exam­ple, if I live in the fic­tion­al Puckett Sober Living Home, then I must par­tic­i­pate in the Puckett-run IOP and coun­sel­ing ser­vices. If I wish to choose anoth­er provider, I must arrange ser­vices and trans­porta­tion myself or leave.

As you can sur­mise, this led mon­ey-hun­gry oper­a­tors to ven­ture into the “busi­ness” of recov­ery. As they have prof­it­ed from the med­ical insur­ance ben­e­fits of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, sit­u­a­tions devel­oped in which peo­ple with the inten­tion of improv­ing their lives were exploit­ed and treat­ed badly. 

A recent exam­ple in Winchester occurred in December 2025. The homes oper­at­ed by an enti­ty called Mommy to Mommy noti­fied their res­i­dents on December 23 that they must leave and make oth­er arrange­ments by December 31. The res­i­dents includ­ed women with their chil­dren, fam­i­lies, and preg­nant women. The own­er did not assist res­i­dents in find­ing anoth­er option and began shut­ting off util­i­ties to get them to vacate the house. This quick­ly led to a com­mu­ni­ty cri­sis, in which numer­ous indi­vid­u­als from sev­er­al agen­cies worked to ensure these peo­ple were not ren­dered homeless.

An even more recent exam­ple occurred dur­ing the week of January 19, 2026. Although the own­er dis­putes this claim, the res­i­dents of a pro­gram called Walker House report­ed that they received only a few days’ notice that the own­er intend­ed to con­vert the res­i­dence for females into a male-only house, requir­ing the women to leave.

When these sit­u­a­tions arise, trust erodes among vul­ner­a­ble recov­er­ing indi­vid­u­als placed in them. In a dis­cus­sion with one com­mu­ni­ty part­ner respond­ing to these issues, he report­ed that dur­ing the past sev­er­al weeks, he has done noth­ing but assist with emer­gency issues cre­at­ed by prof­it-seek­ing sober liv­ing home operators.

We must see this for what it is: a drain on local resources. 

Recovery hous­ing is an inte­gral part of main­tain­ing sobri­ety for indi­vid­u­als mak­ing changes in their lives. We must remem­ber that every indi­vid­ual seek­ing help is someone’s child, spouse, par­ent, neigh­bor, or friend. We all deserve an oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve the con­di­tions of our lives and receive treat­ment for ill­ness. Addiction is a high­ly com­plex dis­ease, and peo­ple who suf­fer from it need to be treat­ed with as much care as we give to can­cer patients.

So, you might ask, how can we ensure that these issues do not con­tin­ue? The Kentucky Legislature passed a bill that became KRS 222.502, requir­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of recov­ery res­i­dences effec­tive July 1, 2024. The law gave oper­a­tors six months to com­ply. But once again, in their wis­dom, our leg­is­la­tors passed the law but allo­cat­ed no fund­ing to sup­port com­pli­ance. The agency respon­si­ble for cer­ti­fy­ing these homes has a total of three peo­ple work­ing across the entire state of Kentucky. 

An operator’s com­pli­ance with cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments was not tied to Medicaid reim­burse­ment. Local gov­ern­ments are sup­posed to ensure these homes are cer­ti­fied. Local ordi­nances appear to be the only cur­rent solu­tion to this prob­lem.   In November 2025, the city of Lexington adopt­ed an ordi­nance that requires oper­a­tors who intend to cease pro­vid­ing ser­vices to sub­mit a tran­si­tion plan to rehouse affect­ed res­i­dents. They must also pro­vide 60 days’ notice of their plan to dis­con­tin­ue ser­vices, among oth­er require­ments. These require­ments are being enforced at the local level.

While all com­mu­ni­ty enti­ties have been doing more with less for years, we need to ensure that every­one is treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and respect. People who have suf­fered from addic­tion are not dis­pos­able mem­bers of our community.

The solu­tion for our com­mu­ni­ty is to pass a local ordi­nance detail­ing require­ments for these res­i­dences. Opioid Abatement funds could be a pos­si­ble source of fund­ing to facil­i­tate a solu­tion to this prob­lem. If we want to con­tin­ue being a com­mu­ni­ty that is sup­port­ive of peo­ple in sub­stance use dis­or­der recov­ery, we must step up to this challenge.

I wish to thank Cody Angel and Lindsay Horseman Angel for their time and gen­eros­i­ty in shar­ing infor­ma­tion to raise aware­ness of this issue.