State leaders want to more strictly regulate recovery housing, or substance-free residences for Ohioans recovering from various addictions.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed an emergency executive order Monday afternoon giving the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health (ODBH) the ability to directly certify recovery housing for the foreseeable future. The agency has begun hiring for more survey staffers to do so, said ODBH Director Tia Marcel Moretti.
The order ends in 120 days, but DeWine has asked a legislative committee, the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR), to codify it.
In the last few years, the amount of recovery housing in Ohio has skyrocketed, he said, from 356 houses in 2022, to more than 1,700 houses in 2026. The state doesn’t directly manage oversight of them, instead relying on the accreditation of two organizations: Ohio Recovery Housing and Oxford House Inc.
But not all the facilities billed as recovery housing are seeking out accreditation from either organization, DeWine said.
“A growing number of unregulated recovery houses (are) operating without a certification,” he told reporters Monday. “These noncertified homes are operating illegally. (ODBH) has already taken legal action ... but frankly, we have to do more.”
Some have unsanitary and unsafe living conditions. And DeWine, alongside state lawmakers Sen. Terry Johnson (R-McDermott) and Rep. Justin Pizzulli (R-Scioto County), raised concerns of abuse of the system, most notably in southern Ohio.
“Bad actors have discovered something very disturbing. You can profit from addiction,” Pizzulli told reporters. “Without strong enough standards and oversight, parts of this system have become the Wild West.”
His rural Scioto County—which houses about 74,000 residents—has 111 accredited recovery houses, according to ODBH data.
It’s not far behind the number in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. Summit County, which includes Akron, has 43 fewer recovery houses.
“If you want to buy two or three old houses, or if you have two or three old houses, and you’re facing tearing them down or doing something else, you can just convert them to a recovery house and make a lot of money,” Johnson told reporters.
House Bill 58, which Pizzulli introduced last year and the Ohio House unanimously advanced in February, would further regulate recovery housing. It is unlikely to see any substantive action before November, since the legislature is out for the summer.
