Mesa Residents Block Sober Living House for Women

This meeting was a shoutfest of bigotry, lubricated by some neighbors who got good and tipsy before they showed up. Then it was topped off with pandering by Rowse vowing to end the state law that specifically was enacted to prevent spineless local governments from doing exactly what Rowse claims he wants to do.

If they are "shown the door" they are discarded in the community in which they reside. In this case San Nicolas Ave.

So Mesa residents don't have to worry about the sober, only the intoxicated will roam their streets?

Good thing no addicts of any kind reside in this Mesa neighborhood. No cokeheads, no heroine snorters, no crackheads, no nicotine smokers, no drunks, none!

And they never drive their cars either.

Any hypocrisy there by career barkeeper Randy Rowse?

I was curious about this so looked up the organization, the person who was putting it together appeared to have no qualifications to run this type of home at least not posted on their website. The only information on their history seems to be teaching a martial arts class which does not qualify one to run a group home whether you are a recovering alcoholic or not, how come there is no concern about that?

BTW, I do share all my comments now so it won't be a mystery to many folks.

Send them to Lompoc, that would enrich that community.

Isn't Rowse one of those who campaigns for libertarian principles... and yet now, because it is in his neighborhood, he wants MORE government regulation?

News flash to Randy Rowse: State law already prohibits local agencies from regulating residential care facilities for 6 or less people By law, these facilities are required to be treated as a residential use.

In other words, there is next to nothing that the neighbors or the City can do to stop this project from moving forward...should the project proponent change her mind and wish to pursue operating the facility.

The neighborhood as described sounds most condusive to successful recovery and rehabilitation. People in recovery don't need to be around the drunken madness of State St that some rehab opponents profit from.
The patients need a safe, comfortable non party environment. In addition rehab residents generally are the quietest neighbors. I once lived right next door to a rehab downtown, never a problem; in fact since it was my wilder days I'm sure I was more a nuisance to them.

I wish she hadn't given up. Those neighbors could have learned a thing or two. As neighbors I'd take women in recovery over drunk college kids any day of the week.

Fair enough. I don't think most people understand the business side of sober-living facilities. You don't usually go there voluntarily to dry out. You're remanded there after DUIs or drug violations by the court instead of serving out a jail sentence. Now, once you get in one, they want $700-800 a month for rent and 'program services'. Program = occasional breathalyzer and maybe some counseling. The people who run sober living facilities of 6 or so individuals are often renting a house (usually a Pini one), and collecting $800 per month from 6 individuals while paying out $2000-2500 a month for rent. Nice little business, and you don't have to have any real qualifications to run one. Which means a lot of these are shady operations where there isn't a whole lot of sober-living going on. I live near one of these. We see the tenants buying booze at a nearby liquor store, drinking around the corner, and shuffling back to the facility. Today they're a resident, tomorrow they might be gone. Lot of transitory folks coming in and out. Some of them are on the shady side, and those usually are here for a couple of weeks and then gone. Some end up generating late night 911 calls. One sober living facility featured a remanded resident stabbing another to death in the neck in 2008. I can totally understand if someone doesn't want that in their neighborhood. Really.

Thanks for the info on how these are set up dogsnsand. Of course no one would want to live within that, definitely not people seriously into recovery. Voluntaries stand a much greater chance of recovery than legally mandated. Under the scenario dogsnsand describes in terms of operation, some kind of care standards need to be set to qualify.
Of course neighbors are concerned, but what about the patient- voluntary or mandated- who nevertheless is paying for a service, in this case health services. Counselors are accreditted*, I would think facilities would undergo some form of accredidation (*sic) as well. If that were the case I'm not sure dogsnsand would be witnessing what they say they are.
Overall, many people do well and once they see how much better they feel and their lives can become strive to maintain that. Some cases are tragic. A voluntary might end up dead in the gutter but another for whom all hope ends up living a happy, healthy, productive life.
One part of ensuring success is consistency on the part of the rehab facility. There's one that gives it's client's credit for time; but will give them a day or even a week off- holidays, employee days and some such. Most medical treatments don't take a week off for the holidays, a highly vulnerable time for people fresh in recovery. It sends a bad signal as well to the client.

Hear, hear!

I have my invisible 5 year old childhood friend and I ask him the question: How do you stop drinking?

He says: You don't have one more!

I am sick to death of psycho drunks who do not get this.

We need a place in the desert to park them because they suck the life out of the rest of us as in their constant rehabilitation needs.

Ken, I think the lack of qualifications or certification was what was most enlightening when I poked into the operation of these facilities in my area. I worked with a guy who had been remanded to one for 6 months. 14 months later, still there. Why? He couldn't pay the $800 per month rent for 1/2 a room. So the facility wouldn't clear him with probation and he was stuck. He was going to become homeless, a probation violation, so I intervened and helped him work with probation to get him out of there. This is the same place the stabbing happened. The 'counselor' was himself a probate for drug use, and was not keeping an eye on the tenants, letting a lot of slides happen. After talking with the management, I realized this was just a business. They wanted rent, and results were secondary. No one had counseling credentials, or drug-alcohol licensing. It explained the shady set - remanded inmates serving out a sentence, and with little incentive to comply or get sober. Some were dealing at the corner while staying there. Without any kind of regulatory oversight on these things, or the ability to feed data back into the probation department that they're poorly run, people keep getting remanded to facilities that really have no business existing. If Mesa residents don't want that in a residential single-family neighborhood, can't blame them one bit.

I agree with Ken.

Lompoc needs all the help it can get and that would be a lovely setting for the recovering alcoholics.....since there is absolutely nothing to do there....no way to get into trouble.

dogsnsand has made a long and detailed fake, straw-man argument in an attempt to conclude that all sober and recovery housing is like that tale of woe and destruction.

And contactjohn is having a 19th Century flashback, touting the exact reasons why addicts need professional help and cannot simply just Say No.

Pritchett, the deal is you don't know which kind of animal you're going to get before it moves in. There's no permitting or regulations on who can open and run a sober-living home. Some are ok. I just happen to live near 3 that are bad operators.

How was it a 'straw-man' argument, John? Everything dogsnsand said was empirical and in no way misrepresented the issue at hand. These are certainly valid concerns, especially if all the facts are not presented. Did the person have any credentials? Did they actually own the home, or were they representing someone who owned the home.

And your comment about the concerned public showing up "tipsy" is in poor taste. Conjecture doesn't belong in a rational argument.