Halfway Home

By Jennier Brown

Published in the November/December 2012 issue of Common Ground

Supportive housing helps the less fortunate better their lot in life. These programs—often referred to as transitional or halfway homes—typically provide affordable or free temporary housing, life skills classes and even therapeutic support to help struggling individuals become self-sufficient, contributing members of society.

Some worry supportive homes bring increased crime and lower property values and try to prevent these programs from ever setting up in their community. Yet research from the Urban Institute suggests supportive housing doesn’t significantly impact either property values or major crime rates.

It turns out living next to a group of domestic violence survivors, homeless youth, disabled veterans or recovering substance abusers may not be any different than living next door to anyone else. It’s not unusual for a supportive housing project to blend in so well to a community that neighbors are unaware of its existence. Some of these homes—and their residents—even become involved community members.

Under the Radar

The organizations running the programs often buy or rent a home quietly from an individual owner. The programs are afforded protection from discrimination by the Fair Housing Act, but are still bound by association rules.

Many don’t broadcast a home’s arrival to protect residents and allow them to slip into their daily routine without scrutiny. The Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, which provides supportive housing for Las Vegas teens who are attending school or working full time, keeps its homes under the radar to ensure residents’ safety.

“We don’t advertise the shelters because a lot of times there’s abuse and for some reason (our teens) are not with their parents, so we don’t let people know where they are,” says Bob Bellis, operations manager for the Nevada Partnership. “So you would never know, except that there are younger people living there.”

The Nevada Partnership has six condominium units that house up to four teens per unit. Neighbors don’t seem to have any issues with the young residents, and the teens have been able to focus on school and work without dealing with the potential stigma of being known as the community’s supportive housing residents.

Open Door

Meanwhile, the Oxford House, a national organization that provides hundreds of sober living homes for recovering substance abusers, prides itself on transparency with communities. Jackson Longan, the regional outreach manager for Oxford House Oklahoma, says that whenever neighbors start asking about an Oxford House, its residents openly answer questions and often lead house tours.

“We strongly encourage the residents of the (Oxford) house to be good neighbors,” says Longan. “We understand not everybody’s going to welcome us with open arms. We understand there’s sometimes a magnifying glass on the house and neighbors are waiting for us to mess up so they can point the finger at us.”

Because of the pressure to make a positive impression on the community, Oxford House is fastidious about who they allow to live in their homes, which typically hold between six and 12 residents per unit. Residents pay around $100 a week in rent and can stay as long as they’d like, but they must follow house rules, be good house members and remain sober, or face expulsion.

Some Oxford residents go beyond the call of their house duties and become active community members. Various residents of the three Oxford Houses located in the Rollingwood Neighborhood Association in Oklahoma City have helped elderly neighbors take care of their yards, maintained the flowers surrounding the association’s entrance sign, attended association picnics and hosted open houses for the community.

Susan Geurin, a Rollingwood resident for the past 18 years, says neighbors initially were concerned that the Oxford homes would become drug havens, but after meeting the residents and learning about the organization’s zero tolerance policy regarding substance use, the neighbors felt comfortable that Oxford House would uphold the community’s integrity. According to Geurin, there’s never been an issue with Oxford residents, and they’ve blended in well with the community; she would even welcome another Oxford House in Rollingwood because they make reliable neighbors.

“They’ll try to keep any kind of problems to a minimum because they’re more interested in being successful in the neighborhood,” says Geurin.

Fitting In

The Anne Frank House, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that provides permanent supportive housing for homeless men and women who have chronic mental illnesses, didn’t receive many complaints from neighbors either—until recently. Joe Berman, co-president of the organization, says a resident’s illness recently took a turn for the worse, and she began disrupting neighbors’ lives to the point where she had to be evicted from the condominium.

Thankfully, Berman says that neighbors understood that it was the individual—not the organization—that was the problem, and the condominium association still supports Anne Frank House’s mission and isn’t resistant to future Anne Frank residents.

“If you get a neighbor next to you who (doesn’t have a mental illness), but is nasty and mean and hard to get along with, it’s the same thing,” says Berman. “It’s no better than what our situation was.”

Casey Boekman, a resident of one of the Rollingwood Oxford homes, understands that sentiment. Boekman says that while most neighbors have been cordial, sometimes he feels Oxford residents are being unfairly judged. He wishes people wouldn’t jump to conclusions when they find out Oxford residents are recovering substance abusers.

“We’re not out to do anything to the neighbors,” says Boekman. “What we’re here for is to try to relearn to live life again and live in a normal environment.”