Tonight, city leaders in Delray Beach will take the first of two necessary votes to implement new rules regulating sober homes.
A staff report estimated there are 247 recovery residences in the city limits. A recovery residence is a home where a group of unrelated people live together while they receive outpatient treatment for drug or alcohol abuse at a separate facility.
The ordinance for discussion Thursday implements two main changes:
-Requires all group homes be 660 feet apart from one another. The distance of a typical city block.
-Requires all recovery residences to be certified with the Florida Association of Recovery Residences. Homes would be subject to inspections by the organization to maintain their certification.
City Commissioner Shelly Petrolia said the changes would protect the people seeking help at recovery residences and protect neighborhoods which have seen numerous recovery residences open on residential blocks.
“If we have positive operating homes, it will effect in a very positive way our community as a whole,” Petrolia pointed out.
She added the distance rule will not apply to existing residences. But all recovery residences in the city will need to get certified, if the commission approves the new rules.
Aaron Ansarov said there are four recovery residences on his Delray Beach block. Because the new rules on spacing isn’t retroactive, the homes will still be on his block even after the ordinance takes effect. But the father of two doesn’t mind.
“It’s like family. You don’t get to chose your family, you don’t get to chose your neighbors. But I get to chose how I’m going to treat them,” he explained.
Ansarov enlists everyone on the block to help with landscaping projects and invites them over for pot luck dinners.
“That’s the whole point of sober living, to reintegrate into a lifestyle that is different than the one you were used to,” he said.
On the east side of town, James Quillian has seen sober homes take over his Osceola Park neighborhood. He said he sees ambulances responding to homes around him several times a week.
He said it’s gotten so bad, he and friends will try to buy homes in the area before recovery residence operators can purchase them and stuff them with people battling addiction.
“They need help, they don’t need to be taken advantage of. And what they’re being is taken advantage of to the detriment to our community and neighborhood,” Quillian pointed out.
He is grateful the city is taking action to make changes.
“They hear the vitriol and the pain and the suffering of the people of Delray asking for a reprieve from this scourge,” he said.
Patients battling addiction are qualified as disabled so federal anti-discrimination laws prevent municipalities from outlawing recovery residences all together.
Commissioner Petrolia is also a realtor. She said despite negative attention surrounding recovery residences, property values in Delray Beach continue to trend up.
If you go, the public meeting begins at 6 p.m. at city hall, 100 NW 1st Ave.