How to tell a good recovery residence from a bad one

Most people choose a recovery residence in a hurry, on a phone, often for someone they love. Good ones and bad ones sound identical for the first five minutes. These questions separate them.

A good operator has a written occupancy agreement and sends it before you commit. It should say, in language you can read once: what the weekly program fee is, what it covers, when it is due, what is expected of you, and how a stay can end.

If there is nothing in writing, stop there. An operator who will not put the basics on paper has already answered most of the other questions.

Money handled informally is the most reliable warning sign there is. Ask plainly, and notice whether the answers are specific.

• Who exactly is being paid — the organization, or a person?
• Do you get a receipt, and a record you can look at later?
• Is there a deposit or intake fee, and is any of it refundable?
• What happens the week someone cannot pay in full — a written process, or straight to the door?
• If someone leaves or is asked to leave mid-week, what happens to money already paid?
• Is anyone asking to hold a resident's benefits, paycheck, bank card or ID? That should stop the conversation.

Cash to an individual with no receipt is how people end up unable to prove they paid, or that they lived somewhere at all when a court later asks.

Visit if you can. If not, ask for a video walkthrough on a live call rather than a photo gallery. You are allowed to see the whole house.

• The bathrooms and the kitchen. They say more about how a house is run than the living room does.
• Where people sleep: how many to a room, whether everyone has a real bed, whether anyone is sleeping somewhere never meant for it.
• Working smoke alarms, a clear way out of every room, a working lock on the front door.
• Somewhere lockable for medication and documents.
• Whether residents are around and willing to talk to you. In a house running well, nobody minds.

Daytime staffing is easy. Nights are when people get into trouble, and this answer tells you whether the house is a home or a set of beds.

• Who is in the house overnight — staff, a manager, or a resident given the job?
• What number does someone call at 2am, and who actually answers it?
• What training does the manager have, and who covers their days off?
• What happens in an overdose — is naloxone in the house, and is anyone trained to use it?

Structure is not the problem — arbitrary structure is. A good residence hands you the house standards in writing and can say what happens after a first violation and after a serious one.

• Are the rules written down, and can you take a copy away today?
• Who decides a rule was broken, and does anyone review that decision?
• Is there any way to appeal, or to have someone else hear your side?
• Are screening results used to help someone, or only to remove them?

Ask: who do I complain to, and what if the complaint is about the person you just named? There should be a named person, a written record, and a route that does not run through whoever is being complained about — at Smart Step, {{COMPLAINT CONTACT}}. You should also be told, without asking, that nobody is penalized for raising something.

Nobody wants this conversation on move-in day, which is why you should have it.

• If someone returns to use, is that automatically the end, or is there a process?
• How much notice is given, and is there ever a same-day removal?
• What happens to their belongings and their medication — do both leave with them, the same day, in hand?
• Is anyone helped to a next place, or is the answer the sidewalk at night?

If medication prescribed as part of recovery is involved, ask first, and listen for vagueness. “Case by case” and “we would want a plan to come off it” are refusals in a friendly coat. The answer you want is that prescribed medication is welcome and stopping it is never a condition of living there. More on that in what “MAT-friendly” actually means.

• What the weekly program fee is, and what it does not cover.
• That there is a written occupancy agreement, offered before you decide.
• Who to call at night, and who to complain to.
• That prescribed medication is welcome — plainly, before you ask twice.
• That they are not a medical provider, if they are not. An honest one says so early.
• What they can tell a family member, and that a signed release is what changes it.
• Who owns and runs the organization, and whether it is a nonprofit.

• Pressure to sign today, especially with a bed supposedly about to go.
• Money in cash, to a person, with no receipt and no record.
• No written agreement, or a promise to sort the paperwork out later.
• Vagueness about prescribed medication, or any suggestion of stopping it to move in.
• No named person to complain to, or a process that runs through the one person you would complain about.
• Being asked to sign a blank or unexplained form, or to hand over ID, a benefits card or a bank card.
• Guaranteed outcomes, success rates, or certification nobody will show you on paper.
• A discounted bed conditional on attending one particular program, or any hint that someone is paid to place people.
• An operator irritated by these questions. The questions are ordinary; the irritation is the answer.

Leaving is allowed. Take identification documents and all medication out the same day, in hand — those are hardest to recover later. Write down what happened, with dates. Call 211, and tell any caseworker or agency involved; they usually know which houses are sound.

Ask us any of them about a Smart Step home. We would rather answer than have you guess.