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By- Dana DeFilippo, New Jersey Monitor
Sober-living homes would face unannounced state inspections twice a year, more stringent reporting requirements, and stiffer fines for violations under legislation a state Senate panel unanimously advanced Thursday.
The bill would codify several changes the state Commission of Investigation recommended in a February report that documented widespread failures in regulation and oversight that investigators say enable corruption to flourish.
Sen. Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester) said he introduced the bill because the homes’ residents and their neighbors deserve a more professional standard.
“This bill is not punitive to the sober-living residence industry or community,” Moriarty said. “What it is trying to do is elevate the professionalism of these types of residences to help ensure that the people that live there will actually have a shot at getting sober, but at the same time recognizing that the people living around these facilities should be protected.”
The bill would amend a 1979 state law on rooming and boarding houses, which also governs sober-living homes. It would:
Raise maximum civil fines on unlicensed operators from $5,000 to $25,000.
Require at least two unannounced inspections and record reviews annually to ensure the home complies with the law.
Mandate reporting requirements for fires, floods, accidents, or any incidents that result in an evacuation, closure, or injury or death of a resident or staffer; overdoses; communicable disease outbreak; crimes; and more.
Task state officials with ensuring at least one supervisor lives on site and that the homes’ staff forbids alcohol or drugs on site, requires residents to undergo random testing for substance use, and encourages residents to attend self-help programs.
Require the state Department of Community Affairs to post a list of licensed sober-living homes online.
Members of the Senate’s Community and Urban Affairs Committee unanimously advanced the bill Thursday. Its Assembly counterpart has not yet been heard by that chamber’s oversight committee.
Tiffany Williams Brewer, chairwoman of the State Commission of Investigation, told lawmakers beefing up oversight of sober-living homes is especially urgent now, when the state expects to receive $1 billion in national opioid settlement funds over the next two decades to invest in addiction recovery.
The commission’s investigators began probing sober-living homes in 2022, when overdose deaths were still on the upswing in New Jersey, she said. Fatal overdoses have been declining as naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug, becomes more available.
“We found that the addiction rehabilitation industry was really a vast place that was really not supervised,” Brewer said. “The business model for some treatment centers and rehabs in New Jersey was not focused on getting patients clean and sober. Instead, they were focused on the vast financial reward that was connected to keeping them trapped in a cycle of addiction and treatment.”
She urged lawmakers to pass the bill, saying it would implement “common-sense reforms.”
Several neighbors of a sober-living home in Washington Township in Gloucester County also testified in support of the bill.
Patrick Hearn told lawmakers he worried about how the home could hurt his property value and how a group of men living “under stress” might deal with their problems in his tightly packed neighborhood. He also complained that the home opened without community notification.
“You feel discriminated, OK, that you’re law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, and this is put upon you without your knowledge,” Hearn said. “What are you supposed to do about it?”
Helen Albright Troxell, a councilwoman in Gloucester Township, told lawmakers she felt for the residents of sober-living homes, because her late husband struggled to overcome alcoholism too. But she said she’s afraid of the residents of the sober-living home she neighbors.
“I understand the value of helping these people and keeping them on the right track. It’s really important, but they need to do it in a location that is proper for everyone,” she said. “My husband died almost four years ago on Christmas Eve, and I’ve always lived alone since then, and I’ve always felt safe in my home, completely safe. And even after my husband died, I felt safe in my home. Well, I don’t feel safe anymore.”
Troxell, Hearn, and others urged lawmakers to act on zoning, so that sober-living homes cannot open in residential neighborhoods.
Moriarty has a separate bill that would require sober-living homes to be subject to municipal land-use regulations, but it has not advanced since it was introduced in February.
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