7 Mistakes that can Ruin Your Sober Living Home

Today we're going to be talking about the seven biggest mistakes to avoid when starting your sober living home. Number one is going to be not choosing the right location, in fact, choosing a terrible location. So location is a big deal when it comes to these types of homes. You need to be near public transportation, near shopping, within walking distance, or at least bike riding distance to, you know, the bus stop, and just the ability to be close to like life. So if you're in a rural area, if you are on the outskirts of town, if you're in an area with no public, public transportation that is unique to like that specific neighborhood, but other areas have public transportation, that would make more sense. Not thinking about that ahead of time can really cost you because if you're going to try to build relationships with case managers, housing liaisons, people who would actually refer people to your homes, they want to make sure that their clients can actually get around. Transportation is a big issue. If you think about substance use issues. A lot of people have DUIs or DWIs, depending on the state you're in. And so if they have lost their license, they are really relying on some kind of public transportation to get around, get to their appointments, get to a courthouse, get to, you know, administrative offices and even outpatient treatment meetings. So it's kind of a big deal. That's the one thing that I think people, that's one of the things that I think people miss out on or don't think about ahead of time, especially if you're starting with a location already. That being said, it's not an end all, be all like deal killer, but it's just something to think about. I have a home that because of the location, because of its proximity to administrative offices, the courthouse, all these other things, stays full of the wait list as opposed to another home in a different city that you know it's going to take an hour or two for someone to take public transportation into that city. Like it's not going to stay as full or at least we're not going to get as many calls. So it's just something to think about to no systems. Like if you don't have any systems and you know, tools and resources or you know, simple things, security, cameras, like it can make your life a hassle. I remember someone joined our coaching program and because they had never heard about it before, right. Awareness is the first step. They were literally going to their house every single day. It was a headache. It was. They were just like just stopping in, taking the time to stop in. And no one would be there, but they had to go out of their way. 20 minute drive here, 20 minute drive back to figure that stuff out. A simple system like a security camera makes it so that you don't have to just spend an hour of your life dropping in for no reason. Now you can see what's going on, you can hear what's going on. Simple things like that save so much time and help you scale up as opposed to, you know, having to be present all, all the time physically, when it may not make sense that people should have jobs and like have something to do during the day. They shouldn't just be chilling at home. Now you can check in. So like, what other systems could you put in place when starting a home? Or if you currently run a sober living home, that would make your life more efficient, that would actually make the business better and could be a proactive deterrent. People don't steal, they don't do as many bad things when they realize somebody could be watching. So just like having that in common areas, big difference in just what people choose to do. So it's something to think about for sure. Three is low or no documentation, meaning you have people move in and they don't fill out certain paperwork. Maybe you don't get a release of information, maybe you don't get emergency contact information. If something happens, who do you call? Other than 911, there's a lot of things that you can put in place that can easily resolve issues. Even having like a clause that says if they break the rules that they can't live there anymore. Like if you're just using a standard lease, it's kind of a problem. I'm all for giving people tenants rights. I am not a fan of not maintaining the sober element of the house. And if you can't kick someone out for violating the house rules or if you don't have any rules at all, that's a problem problem. So that's something to avoid for sure when starting up your sober living home. Four is mixing genders. You should not be having male and female residents in the same space. I don't even recommend if you have two different units having males in one unit and females in another unit because the odds are they're going to not be focused on recovery, they're going to be focused on each other and that's a problem. So you can end up having a lot of issues, a lot of drama, and I just recommend not doing that. In fact, there's many programs who will not place somebody in your home home if it is a mixed gender home. So that's a no, no, just have a single male house, a separate female house, far away from each other. Don't let them know where each other are. They can for whatever reason, you know, come together separately away from the homes, but I just would not have them housed together. Five would be no structure in the home. So if you don't have house rules, if you don't have, you know, a curfew, if you don't have simple things in place just to make sure that people actually know how to live in your homes, if you don't set that standard and the expectation up front, it can cause problems later. I remember my first six months, I barely knew anything about suburb living homes and I started three homes really fast. That first six months. There's a lot we didn't have in place. There's a lot of structure, there's a lot of, you know, just stuff that I didn't have but also didn't know how to hold people accountable to and we had issues. And it wasn't until after that first six, seven months that I really started to put some stuff in place and make sure that people knew what the chores were that they actually needed to do them, that it wasn't just lip service but like they would get a write up or something if they didn't do their house chore and contribute. It's good for the resident, it's good for the home, it's good for building community. Everyone needs to be contributing something and so that's how everyone can kind of pull their weight and do their fair share. And so if you don't have those things in place, you can really have a home that is lacking in any kind of cohesive feeling. You're going to have higher turnover, but also it can just be a mess. So you want to make sure there's chores, there's rules, there's a curfew, there's a lights out time and really enforce it like it matters. Six would be no drug testing. If you have a sober living home, but you're not actually testing people when they move in to let them know that you're serious about it. You could be setting yourself up for disaster. And when I first started I, I did not spend a ton of money on drug tests. I was relying heavily on the outside programs and case management to test people instead of doing it myself. And what I learned is a lot of people will lie to their PO or their case manager or maybe they were clean for a day, but they still have something in their system they really needed to go to detox instead of coming into our home. We solved a lot of problems when we started drug testing immediately when someone moved in and found out, number one, are they telling us the truth? Do they truly want to be in a sober living environment and are they ready for it? And number two, you know, if you just threaten like, hey, you're going to be tested now. They can actually be honest and be like, hey, it's going to be dirty. And they can make the choice to go to detox instead of you finding out seven days later, 10 days later, two weeks later that they've been using the whole time and then sending them off to detox. Like now you can start the relationship the right way. They understand you're serious. It's not a place where they can get away with things and you're just laying down the law immediately. That tough love right from the beginning. And now they're going to be a much better fit moving forward because that that standard and that expectation has been set. We allow people to go to detox and get through their withdrawals and then come back, we'll hold their place, Their programs that they're in will typ typically actually continue paying for them because it's what's best for the resident as well. But we just want to make sure they understand, like we're serious about it. And now having multiple locations about to open, our eighth, like it's the number one thing we do that I think has resolved 90% of the issues we had. Just making sure people understand they're going to be tested when they move in seven and I think this is maybe the biggest deal of all is not doing enough market research. If you're going into an area, you're new to this and you don't try to figure out who all the players are, but also the local government programs, the non nonprofit agencies, anyone who could be a funding and referral source to your home, you're doing yourself a disservice. I know a ton of sober living operators who just rely on people to pay out of pocket. The problem with that is they're chasing people down three weeks, four weeks in, they moved in, they didn't pay anything, they have no skin in the game, they don't have a job yet or they couldn't hold down the job, they relapse, they're chasing them down for a month or longer and not getting paid. No wonder they can't make things work. They can't make ends meet and they can't figure out how to scale their portfolio of sub living homes. They're just trying to get one house to cash flow because they're chasing people down. If you have connections with iops, with, you know, residential treatment centers, with local government programs that can provide case management and make sure people are in outpatient treatment, number one, you have third party support so you have somebody you can call and let them know what's going on. If you have a release of information, you can even find out, you know, if they're testing at that program and what the results are. Save yourself a little bit of money not to pay for a ton of tests yourself. But number three, you get, you don't have to chase people down like you can just collect a direct deposit. 95% of our residents are in some kind of program, local government program that pays for them to be there, provides additional case management and support. And we can just provide housing, utilities, Internet and make sure that, you know, they're actually sober. So we test as well. If you do those things right, if you do these seven things right, you will have an amazing business that can flourish. People will do really well. They'll move on to permanent housing in 10 to 12 months. That's kind of our average. And you're not going to have as many headaches. If you do any of these wrong, you will see issues start to pop up. And so if you're having an issue now, currently running a home, go ahead and review all of these and see what you can implement. If you are just thinking about starting up a home and you want to avoid all these issues yourself, we do have a coaching program that talks through all of these things. You get our exact systems, tools, models, everything that we use inside of our business and that's called Sober Living Riches. You can go to sober livingriches.com apply and apply to be a part of that program. See if we're a fit. You'll get on a call with either myself or a team member and we will help you avoid these issues from the very beginning and avoid banging your head against the wall like I did my first six or seven months. So we will be back with another video soon and good luck to you on starting your sober living home.