By Alex Friedrich

afriedrich@pioneerpress.com

Article Last Updated: 03/04/2008 12:23:18 AM CST

Problems with poorly run sober houses have riled people in a number of St. Paul neighborhoods, and Monday the city discussed its first shot at regulating the facilities.

At a Summit-University community center, planning officials heard residents sound off on proposed zoning ordinance amendments designed to handle the houses. In the meantime, the city maintains a de facto moratorium on them.

The changes are supposed to balance the needs of sober-house inhabitants — recovering alcoholics and addicts who are getting their lives back together — and the communities in which they live.

“We want to make sure the structures are safe, integrate them into neighborhoods and make sure we address the larger impacts on the neighborhoods,” city planner Luis Pereira said.

St. Paul has almost three dozen registered sober houses, he said, but residents said many others operate “under the radar.”

Many houses comprise a handful of recovering substance abusers who decide to live together and support each other. Others are larger operations run by landlords for a profit.

To live in a house, alcoholics must not drink and must be financially self-supporting, among other things.

The houses have been around for decades, and many neighborhood residents never know they’re there.

But some people have complained they’re seeing more and more in their communities — sometimes more than one on a block. And because federal laws consider the residents disabled, more of them can live in a house than is normally allowed.
Critics said that creates a number of problems, especially when the sober houses are poorly run.

At the forum, neighbors painted a picture of absent landlords, poor upkeep, lots of noise and huge parking crunches.

“This is public safety stuff that the city has to get a handle on,” said 55-year-old Marshall Avenue resident Gary Carlson.

Among other things, neighbors said they want the city to keep better tabs on sober houses, better screen those who run them, reduce the density of the houses and resolve parking problems.

But sober-house supporters said they shouldn’t be singled out and that they draw fewer police visits than college “party houses.”

Most residents in sober houses are productive and law-abiding, supporters said, and need the facilities to make a transition to mainstream life.

“I owe my life to sober housing,” said David Mott, a 23-year-old sober-house resident who said he’ll earn a degree in accounting next year.

John Curtiss, of the Minnesota Association of Sober Homes, cautioned against suggestions to identify all the facilities in the city or to decide where a law-abiding recovering alcoholic or addict is allowed to live.

“It’s a scary thing to hear that kind of thing in a community,” he said.

The proposed zoning amendments, which stemmed from a city study of sober housing, would still permit the facilities in any area that allows residential use. And they would grandfather in existing sober houses that are legal.

Among other things, the amendments call for:

– 1 1/2 off-street parking spaces per dwelling unit.

– A parking plan for each sober house.

– Information from each sober-house operator, which would include the number of residents, bedrooms and bathrooms.

– A “modest” distance requirement between new sober houses with seven or more residents.

– A minimum lot size for those with six or more residents.

The city will hold at least two more public hearings on the matter, and Pereira said officials hope to bring a draft ordinance to the Planning Commission this spring.

The boulevard of new dreams: Recovering alcoholics take a symbolic stroll down Grand Avenue, the street that historically offers them community and support as they pursue lives of sobriety.

Laura Yuen
Pioneer Press

May 17, 2007

When recovering alcoholics move into one of Chris Edrington’s St. Paul sober houses, he tells them not to find God, but to find coffee.

Go to Grand Avenue, Edrington instructs.

On St. Paul’s trendiest boulevard, many of the folks sipping or serving lattes have wrestled with addictions. And for the past couple of decades, they have fueled the area’s reputation as Recovery Row. “When you get out, no matter where you live, you’ve got to go where other alcoholics hang out,” said Edrington, who owns eight sober houses in St. Paul, all of them within walking distance of Grand Avenue. “There’s nothing more powerful.”

On Wednesday, Edrington and several dozen other recovering addicts ambled along the avenue’s sidewalks for their first-ever “Grand Sobriety Stroll.” They hugged, laughed and filled up on free coffee along the way. Recovery Works!, a group that aims to raise awareness of recovery, coordinated the event. The walk was a metaphor for Jo Campe, a recovering alcoholic and pastor of downtown St. Paul’s so-called “Recovery Church” at Central Park United Methodist.

“There were lots of years where we didn’t walk in public through many parts of our lives,” Campe said. “To be out in public like this is claiming back our humanity and sense of purpose.”

Many in the recovery community fondly refer to their adopted state as “The Land of 10,000 Treatment Centers.” During the past 20 years, Grand Avenue has become an unofficial hub for addicts from all over the world who are trying to stay clean.

Some of them gravitated to the neighborhood after spending time at Hazelden’s Fellowship Club on nearby West Seventh Street, one of the nation’s first halfway houses.

“The easiest place to find employment in bookstores and coffee shops was the Grand Avenue neighborhood,” said Andrew Wainwright, executive director of Addiction Intervention Resources in St. Paul. “Like all human beings, you’re going to say, ‘Where’s the nice neighborhood? Where are the outdoor cafes?’ We’re attracted to beautiful places with nice people.”

More recently, St. Paul has also seen the rise of sober houses. These arrangements represent the last tier of care – groups of recovering addicts who share privately operated rental homes. Unlike halfway houses, sober houses are not regulated by the city, and there are no clinicians on site.

“My model is single-family homes in nice neighborhoods so you feel like you’re back in a normal society and no longer in a facility,” said Edrington, a recovering heroin addict who owns St. Paul Sober Living facilities.

But some neighbors have complained about the proliferation of sober houses, which offer an estimated 400 beds in the city. And even within the recovery community, not everyone is happy with the model. Sober houses don’t account for relapses, which are often part of the recovery process, said Ashley Stanley, a spokeswoman for St. Paul-based Addiction Recovery Professionals who used to help run sober houses. While she supports the concept, Stanley also advocates more structured support and protocol if someone has a lapse in judgment.

“What’s happening is someone relapses, and the locks are changed on them, and they have to pack their bags and leave at that moment,” she said.

Edrington, though, says the model has evolved over the past few years. He and other sober-house landlords are forming a new statewide group, the Minnesota Association of Sober Homes. The group will demand that its members promote sobriety and make sure the living spaces they provide are clean and safe, he said. On Wednesday, Courtney Lubrant and friend Matthew Frost walked side by side from Snelling Avenue to Grotto Street. Lubrant, 21, has been sober for just over a year. The Crystal native said she never met as many sober people in the community until she settled into St. Paul after treatment. At the Caribou Coffee on Grand and Grotto, she draws inspiration from an older generation of recovering alcoholics who remind her to take it one day at a time.

Wainwright, of Addiction Intervention Resources, calls another coffeehouse, the Starbucks at Grand Avenue and Victoria Street, the “ground zero” of recovery.

“All you would need to do was walk in and have your life put together in a half-hour,” he said. “I’ve gotten phone messages there. It’s the place.”

Laura Yuen can be reached at lyuen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5498.

Copyright 2007 St. Paul Pioneer Press