Residential Recovery: How States Experience It
To be perfectly blunt, while our representatives are concerned about issues of Residential Recovery, the rest of the California Legislature is mostly concerned with headlines. To them, the addiction epidemic means there can never be enough Recovery Residences; and any additional regulation is by definition onerous or discriminatory, even if less regulation is resulting in crime against the people Residential Recovery is intended to help.
State Health Code (H&S 11834.17-11834.23) precludes cities from any involvement in licensed Residential Recovery; the code specifically says such a property "...shall be considered a family for the purposes of any law or zoning ordinance..." and "...for the purpose of all local ordinances, an alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility that serves six or fewer persons shall not be included within the definition of a boarding house..." even if it IS a boarding house. In addition, while the initial code was intended to preclude medical services in residential neighborhoods, the State has gradually given more and more permission to increase the medical services provided. In doing so, it has begun blurring the distinction between Residential Care and Clinical Care in a Residential Setting.
For decades, the State has supported a model of Residential Care which allows people who benefit from supervised care services to live in residential neighborhoods, with up to 6 unrelated tenants in the house. However, most of these forms of Residential Care were long term, not boarding houses. In offering to let businesses operate short-term housing in long term, single-family residential neighborhoods, the state created an arbitrage even greater than that of AirBnb: because short term rentals contracts can charge more for the same space than long term, businesses can make money off the properties that others who are prohibited from operating boarding houses in the same neighborhood can not. The state specifically stepped on the rights of municipalities to define the rules by which ALL residents, regardless of their disabilities, live in single-family zoning. In effect, the State has created a Gold Rush for businesses to buy up and rent-out properties that were previously unavailable to businesses.
A second state law called FEHA (Fair Employment and Housing Act) is an extension of the Federal Government's Fair Housing Act. For more information about how this comes into play, see "Residential Recovery: How the Federal Government Regulates It."
It is symbolic of how badly these businesses want to maintain this undeserved and lucrative privilege of boarding houses in residential neighborhoods that all over the country, and particularly in Southern California, businesses have repeatedly sued cities (including Dana Point, San Clemente, Newport Beach, Malibu and Costa Mesa) that have attempted to regulate them, claiming the right to sue based on “discrimination” against their tenants under the Fair Housing Act. They have also actively sued citizens who have spoken up about the issue, accusing them of discrimination as well. The cost to municipalities of these suits has been staggering; and yet, we are unaware of any disabled person having been involved or named in these suits. In reality, Recovering Addicts are not feeling deprived of an equal access to housing; businesses want to maintain their entitlement to operate however they please, wherever they please.
State Health Code (H&S 11834.17-11834.23) precludes cities from any involvement in licensed Residential Recovery; the code specifically says such a property "...shall be considered a family for the purposes of any law or zoning ordinance..." and "...for the purpose of all local ordinances, an alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility that serves six or fewer persons shall not be included within the definition of a boarding house..." even if it IS a boarding house. In addition, while the initial code was intended to preclude medical services in residential neighborhoods, the State has gradually given more and more permission to increase the medical services provided. In doing so, it has begun blurring the distinction between Residential Care and Clinical Care in a Residential Setting.
For decades, the State has supported a model of Residential Care which allows people who benefit from supervised care services to live in residential neighborhoods, with up to 6 unrelated tenants in the house. However, most of these forms of Residential Care were long term, not boarding houses. In offering to let businesses operate short-term housing in long term, single-family residential neighborhoods, the state created an arbitrage even greater than that of AirBnb: because short term rentals contracts can charge more for the same space than long term, businesses can make money off the properties that others who are prohibited from operating boarding houses in the same neighborhood can not. The state specifically stepped on the rights of municipalities to define the rules by which ALL residents, regardless of their disabilities, live in single-family zoning. In effect, the State has created a Gold Rush for businesses to buy up and rent-out properties that were previously unavailable to businesses.
A second state law called FEHA (Fair Employment and Housing Act) is an extension of the Federal Government's Fair Housing Act. For more information about how this comes into play, see "Residential Recovery: How the Federal Government Regulates It."
It is symbolic of how badly these businesses want to maintain this undeserved and lucrative privilege of boarding houses in residential neighborhoods that all over the country, and particularly in Southern California, businesses have repeatedly sued cities (including Dana Point, San Clemente, Newport Beach, Malibu and Costa Mesa) that have attempted to regulate them, claiming the right to sue based on “discrimination” against their tenants under the Fair Housing Act. They have also actively sued citizens who have spoken up about the issue, accusing them of discrimination as well. The cost to municipalities of these suits has been staggering; and yet, we are unaware of any disabled person having been involved or named in these suits. In reality, Recovering Addicts are not feeling deprived of an equal access to housing; businesses want to maintain their entitlement to operate however they please, wherever they please.