‘We can make good progress’: How SC is stepping in to aid drug recovery homes
When Missy Higgs was on probation in 2013 and looking for safe, clean housing where she could focus on recovering from drug addiction, her probation officer was skeptical of sending her to a newly opened program in Conway.
Greater Love Home was Horry County’s first women’s recovery house, and Higgs called it “an absolute blessing” as the stringent recovery program has helped turn her life around, staying clean for several years.
Higgs now serves as the organization’s executive director, helping other women who are often skeptical of recovery homes because of previous negative encounters.
“Unfortunately, there are places that don’t know how to help people,” she said, relaying stories she’s been told of filthy living conditions in secluded areas. “It ends up just continuing the (addiction) cycle.”
A Sun News investigation published in October found at least 28 recovery residences, often called sober or transitional living homes, housing up to 212 recovering addicts in Horry County with more being planned, and at least 25 of those residences opened within the last five years.
The homes are unregulated and largely unfunded by the government, leaving a particularly vulnerable population — recovering addicts — at further risk.
“We have a hard time knowing the quality of each home to refer people to safe, appropriate homes,” Sara Goldsby, director of the state’s Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, previously told The Sun News.
The department has taken a step toward increasing its knowledge and the quality of homes in South Carolina by funding a national organization aimed at self-regulating the industry.
DAODAS recently signed a contract with the National Alliance for Recovery Residences and its state affiliate, the South Carolina Alliance for Recovery Communities, according to Lee Dutton, the department’s chief of staff.
Under the contract, the national alliance will identify existing recovery houses in the state, identify existing and potential stakeholders for funding opportunities and help its state affiliate implement a voluntary certification process.
The contract will provide the organizations with a combined $125,000, paid for by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration through the State Opioid Response grant, Dutton said.
The South Carolina affiliate is headed by Mike Todd, a recovery home operator in Greenville who says he got clean decades ago in a Myrtle Beach condo filled with others seeking recovery.
Todd said he hopes this funding will help them “separate the good apples from the bad” when it comes to recovery home operators.
He pointed to a recent story about how an employee of a recovery center in Greenwood was arrested on multiple drug-related charges and said most operators want accountability to distance their programs from those that perception.
“As long as there’s a vulnerable population that can be exploited, we’re not going to be able to stomp it out completely,” Todd said, “but I feel like we can make good progress.”
The national alliance has 26 established state affiliates and a set of standards focused on proper supervision, ethics, rules and residents’ rights.
Todd said they’ll be hosting an informational session May 1 in Columbia to start recruiting volunteers willing to be trained to certify recovery homes across the state with plans to start certifying in late June or early July.
Nicole Criss, executive director of Faces and Voices of Recovery Grand Strand, said she’s planning to sit on the board for South Carolina Alliance for Recovery Communities.
FAVOR operates two recovery homes in the Myrtle Beach area, and Criss said they plan to get both certified as they already operate under the standards established by the national alliance.
Higgs said Greater Love Home also operates under those standards, but she wants to attend the open house and learn more about the certification process before committing.
One question she has is about the alliance’s stance on medication-assisted treatment, a form of recovery aided by opioids such as Suboxone or methadone largely supported by the medical community but also a source of controversy within the recovery community.
Greater Love Home does not allow its residents to participate in medication-assisted treatment.
Joel Bagley, a recovery home operator in Georgia who serves on the national alliance’s board, said they generally support medication-assisted treatment but allowing residents to participate in it isn’t required for certification.
The Recovery Ranch, a sizable farm in the Loris area that houses about 30 recovery addicts, previously allowed medication-assisted treatment but recently stopped, according to Christa Reynolds, co-owner of the ranch.
Reynolds said they started seeing more problems than benefits, including finding that one of their residents, who was more than five months sober, had taken an extra dose of Suboxone.
Reynolds said she would love to get the ranch certified and participate in any efforts to increase the viability of recovery residences.
One organization that will not be participating in the new certification process, according to Todd, is Oxford House, which has its own national organization.
Oxford House, which allows the recovering residents to run each house themselves, operates about 70 recovery homes in South Carolina, including 12 in Horry County, according to its website.
This story was originally published April 24, 2019 at 8:21 AM.
