The Residents of Lake Osborne (ROLO) had its meeting last night and Sen. Jeff Clemens was its guest speaker. He spoke to the issue near and dear to our hearts, Sober Homes.
When asked, he did admit that Palm Beach County has more drug addicts and more sober homes than any other county in the country. When asked why is that, he chalked it up to the great weather. He has been working diligently to solve this growing sober home problem but made sure that we understood that sober homes were NOT recovery facilities but only places where people resided, that they were protected under Federal laws.
Clemens has been pouring his energy into a bill over the last several years that had great intentions. It attempted the following:
- Shut down all Florida sober house transitional living homes that attempted to operate without a certificate of registration from the Department of Children and Families (DCF)
- Mandate that all owners of sober living homes apply for a certificate of registration with DCF every year
- Require that “certain sober house transitional living homes” apply for a registration certificate by a certain date
- Require DCF to create rules that would structure the application process for sober living homes seeking a certificate of registration
I did not realize that there was no on-site "house mother" or manager in these homes. Recovery addicts with similar afflictions simply share a house together. There must be more oversight. Sober home owners are running businesses in our single family residential neighborhoods and need to be licensed and adhere to standards. Although our lake Worth laws allow 2 people to a bedroom, most sober homes have many more people living in them and owners make small rental fortunes. Anyone can open up a sober home and as Sen Clemens said, it has been impossible to shut the bad ones down.
Let's put more pressure on our elected representatives in Washington.
11 comments:
Many,many thanks to Senator Jeff Clemens for speaking on this increasingly serious topic.It took guts for an elected official to stand up and talk about a tough subject.We all need to support Senator Clemens actions and put pressure on other elected officials to act. The room was packed .PBSO Deputy Dasilva also spoke and gave the people a true look at what law enforcement is facing with this epidemic.We as neighbors can make life tough on homes that are causing problems by calling PBSO and code.Thank you to everyone who came to this meeting.
Katie Mcgiveron ,President ROLO Neighborhood Association
Tired of hearing about this "great weather" truth is we can't go outside 6 to 8 months a year we run from one air conditioning bubble to another and couldn't possibly walk around in the punishing sun. Only a/c gives optimal temps.
Some must be getting their referrals from pimp like characters who sleeze around town and not from the sleezier "treatment"centers advertising everywhere. Those ads should be stopped and support businesses boycotted, LW will fail because of this cancer.
Don't count of jeff for doing much, he and his lame leadership is the reason why we have them in the first place. he is always on the side of druggies, pot smokers, drunks, speeders, and all bad people. He has never done much for the good tax paying citizens or people affected by crime. If anything, I blame him for all of these problems now. Actions speak louder than words with this one.
He loves to just make it look like he is really doing something.
Much thanks to Sen. Clemens for his efforts and leadership on this issue.
I hoping more will be done and soon. In the mean time it would be great if the City started enforcing its zoning laws regarding how many people can live in a home, etc.
There was a time not long ago that savvy people set up elder "group homes" in single family residential areas for older people who were ambulatory and they were paid by the State to house these people, two to a bedroom. Sound familiar? The local government was able to make sure the homes met commercial life safety requirements including manual fire alarms, commercial type kitchens with 3 compartment sinks, ADA ramps, ADA bathrooms and 36" wide doorways throughout the home per ADA code.
Why can't we require "businesses" that claim "ADA protection" bring their property up to ADA compliance? Make these homes ADA Facilities.
There are other innovative ways to address this issue. Upon application of a rental license, there could be questions asking whether ADA protections will be needed at this home. If they check that box, then ADA requirements kick in. Federal requirements were also mentioned at the meeting that many other cities are taking advantage of, but not Lake Worth.
Find out what organizations represent the Sober Home Industry and see who they contributing to.
The trouble is the we are hamstrung by ADA protections. These are not listed as businesses, even though the bad ones are slum lords running urine farms. Just one "boarder" can account for $4500 in urine tests per day. Multiply by 10 X 365 days/year and they are proliferating like flies on meat. Making millionaires and destroying neighborhoods. According the the ADA protections these are just folks just living together for moral support. And this makes them legally exempt from zoning regulations. They supposedly must be allowed to live in residential neighborhoods to be able to transition back into society. Once they use, they are bounced out on the street, far from home, no job, no family. They fly them in for free I am told. They may rent equipment for drug testing and get all the money, or get kickbacks from the labs. Which is highly illegal and direct violation of the Stark Law. Shelley Vana made a snide answer to someone about "urinating money." But that is exactly what most of these are about literally. All they need is any human, straight or using, to pee for them. Liquid gold that is fast making lots of millionaires out of scumbag slumlords. My apologies to those that are legit. And I finally figured out why we suddenly have huge homeless populations and a huger drug problem and so much more crime the past year. We are importing these people from other states. "Come rehab in sunny Florida!" When they get kicked out what's left but selling drugs, break ins, or prostitution? We need to call PBSO for anything we see. Any possible code violations, any suspicious activity. I'm not about to give up my neighborhood without a fight. It's just not right.
Sounds good to me! All good ideas, anonymous.
Lynn, No. There are no "house mothers." They seem to be keeping to 2 people per bedroom in Lake Worth. For each person, I'm told, they get about $1500 a month from the insurance company. So, sober home operators make about FOUR TIMES what a normal landlord does. Or more. For a four-bedroom house, they can get 8 x $1500 a month. So.... $12,000!!! I don't think the insurance companies should be paying for this. Let's lobby them.
Our code doesn't limit by number of people it is based on habitable space which is much more complicated. Why, I don't know.
I'm hopeful that the insurance litigation regarding the urine scam and litigation directed to property owners and sober home operators for overdoses, rapes and deaths will eventually make this business less profitable and they will go away. The urine scam litigation has started. There have been fraud investigations up in WPB as well. I think, we as neighbors need to keep the pressure on with the City they can and should be doing more. With the bad operators, these homes quickly turn into nuisances, as defined by our code, let's use those codes to kick them out.
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