Author: Charles Frank

Halfway House vs Sober Living What is a Halfway House

Halfway houses are just as much a part of someone’s prison sentence as incarceration itself, but they are subject to much less scrutiny than prisons and jails. This lack of guidelines and oversight has ensured that people in halfway houses are not being aided in safely and effectively rebuilding their lives after serving time in jails and prisons. It’s past time to start implementing oversight measures and extensive reforms that keep residents safe and help the halfway house experience feel more like reentry – and less like an extension of the carceral experience. Cases of COVID-19 are uniquely dangerous in halfway houses due to the work release component of many facilities.

How Long Can You Stay in a Sober-Living House?

A minimum stay of three months is recommended, but many benefit from a longer stay for sustained sobriety. Another difference from a halfway house is that a sober living home is usually not co-ed and can be further segmented by specific age groups. For example, here at New Life House, our homes are designed for young men in specific age ranges. We find that providing age requirements in our homes helps our young men form better bonds and friendships with their peers and further reinforces their desire to live sober lifestyles.

1. One operator was permanently barred from a federal housing program because of improper billing, yet started a new halfway house that is getting thousands of dollars from the same program,” the Times reported.
2. The availability of treatment slots for individuals released from jail or prison or particularly lacking.
3. Typically, residents entered these SLHs after establishing some period of sobriety while they resided in a nearby shelter and attended the outpatient program.
4. Instead, Simpson paid $500 a month for a bed in a roach-infested house with up to four other women, one of whom used drugs and had sex with men in the shared bedroom.
5. This was accompanied by a strong faith in the scientific expert and a belief in rehabilitation of “sick” offenders rather than the punishment of “rational” actors.

Following a suicide attempt and a brief stay at a private mental health facility, Leisha Simpson needed a safe residence. She decided to go to Still Standing in St. Petersburg, as the program’s website said it provided a “safe haven” with counseling and 12-step meetings. There were no trained staff at the Okaloosa Street house and no routine testing for drugs and alcohol.

Halfway Houses vs. Sober Living Homes

Similarly, the tenants of a sober-living home are often in the middle of an ongoing recovery process, attending Twelve Step meetings and other outpatient programs for their substance use—whereas the tenants in a halfway house may not be engaged in recovery programs. On the federal level, the Bureau of Prisons needs to develop its own initiatives for improving its use of halfway houses. The federal government, with its ability to capture data not only from the BOP but also from state prison systems relative to successful reentry programs, has even less of an excuse for the current state of its contract halfway houses. In November 2011, the former director of a West Virginia halfway house pleaded guilty to having sex with a federal prisoner. Carrie L. Cockrell, 36, charged with sexual abuse of a ward, was sentenced on February 1, 2012 to five months in prison and five years of supervised release, including five months on home confinement. She had been the director of Bannum Place, a federally-contracted reentry facility in Clarksburg.

How Does Sober Living Work?

Although some halfway houses are adequately managed and staffed with competent professionals, others are operated more for profit than an interest in helping offenders successfully return to society. Too many incidents involving poorly-supervised halfway house residents and indifferent, or even criminal, behavior by employees have occurred in almost every state as well as the federal prison system. In some instances, rehab facilities may refer a patient to a halfway house following treatment. Similarly, court-mandated treatment centers and/or the court may recommend or mandate that someone stay in a halfway house.12 Other times, residents seek out halfway houses of their own accord. Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more important that the public focus on the jail-like conditions of halfway houses which put vulnerable populations at risk.

Halfway houses serve as the halfway point between an institution and independent society, with residents usually coming from either correctional or inpatient treatment facilities. Texas has experienced problems with halfway houses that include high-profile escapes; in October 2012, for example, a rapist absconded from the Southeast Texas Transitional Center. Thomas Lee Elkins, 55, convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault, was the sixth offender to escape from Southeast in a 24-month period. Dismas manages halfway houses in Kentucky pursuant to an agreement with the state Department of Corrections, which allows residents to perform volunteer work at job assignments for time off their sentences. Most of the work is performed in the Louisville area for city agencies and nonprofits. In Colorado, Michael Angelo Hernandez, 28, had been arrested several times for stealing cars, break-ins, fights and DUI.

Some sober-living homes have a base rate with additional costs for added services. When you’re looking for a sober recovery home, be sure to ask what’s included in the monthly rate and what is extra. Some examples of additional services may include transportation to appointments, recovery coaching, meals and gym memberships.

Recovery Coaching

For its part, Dismas said that if the Kentucky Department of Corrections deems prisoners worthy of being sent to their halfway houses, they have no problem sending them to work for city agencies. At the same time the state was imposing fines for repeated escapes, the Christie administration was working to reduce halfway house oversight. In June 2012, Governor Christie issued a line-item veto to curtail new disclosure requirements and, two months later, significantly weakened a requirement for audits of halfway house contracts.

Iowa halfway houses have had trouble with escapes and residents committing new crimes. When arrested again in August 2012, he was supposed to be in the custody of the Iowa Department of Corrections, but had absconded from the department’s Davenport halfway house. When these kinds of problems are brought to the state’s attention they are often ignored, according to Bronislaw Szulc, formerly a senior state official in charge of investigating halfway houses. Szulc said he submitted extensive documentation concerning drugs, violence, escapes and poor security at the Robinson Center and other halfway houses before retiring in 2010.

Annual Reports

These facilities range from entirely carceral to not carceral at all (represented by the locked doors), and feature different priorities and programming for the people residing in them. Their purposes can also overlap, as community based correctional facilities, for instance, house individuals at various stages in their incarceration. For the purpose of this briefing, however, we are focusing on “Halfway Houses in the Criminal Justice System”– which are state or federally contracted facilities for people leaving state or federal incarceration. When we enroll in a sober living program, we receive round-the-clock supervision and support.

Placement in Residential Reentry Centers (RRCs) post-incarceration can technically be declined by people slated for release, but doing so would require staying in prison instead. It can be difficult for people in recovery to get the social interaction they need because some people may not accept or respect their new lifestyle. Halfway houses offer healthy social interaction with people who understand your needs and the challenges of sober living. However, they are generally open to people who have completed an inpatient or outpatient addiction treatment program.