The residents of Fountain Hills have a right to be upset that outside business entities continue to open more and more commercial sober living home businesses in our residential neighborhoods without adequate regulations to protect our quality of life, safety and property values.
While we understand they can’t be banned due to ADA protections, they could have more oversight and regulations locally to protect both town residents and the occupants of the recovery houses.
The rehab businesses who open these sober houses do not do it as a purely philanthropic effort. It is big business. A 30-day stay is listed on luxury rehab websites starting at $20,000 per person. Many programs are for 30- to 90-day periods. And then there are the inevitable relapses.
These businesses rent large local neighborhood homes from owners who reside out of state or off the premises. Up to 10-20 unrelated recovery clients reside in these single-family neighborhood homes. If there are 10 in one home, over a one-year period that is over $2 million for the business who is selling our beautiful views and small community for profit with no real financial benefits for our community.
Many residents in our small town encourage the Planning and Zoning ordinances to be passed that will offer us some level of protection and that our Town Council will then vote accordingly to protect the residents of this community.
