‘Relapse capital’ awash in ODs

Analysis shows most take place near Delray’s many sober homes

DELRAY BEACH — In the shadows of Delray’s Beach’s lively entertainment district, hundreds of people are overdosing on drugs just beyond the group homes that are supposed to help them recover.

The vast majority of drug overdoses in Delray occur in neighborhoods where sober homes are concentrated, predominantly on the city’s east side, a Sun Sentinel investigation found. The analysis showed: Nearly 70 percent of overdoses in Delray Beach occur within walking distance, or a quarter-mile, of a sober home. Neighborhoods east of Interstate 95 have seen the highest concentrations: 809 overdoses in a region where 111 sober homes are situated. The western half of the city had far fewer overdoses (243) and listed sober homes (nine).

Five percent of the overdoses happened inside sober homes themselves.

The Sun Sentinel explored the issue after Delray Beach became the first city in Florida to document the addresses of its sober

homes, part of an effort to control the growing recovery industry in a city the New York Times recently labeled a “relapse capital.”

The Sun Sentinel obtained a list of 120 sober homes, or recovery residences, in Delray through a public records request and then compared it with the 1,052 drug overdoses recorded during the past 21⁄2 years.

Overdoses shot up more than 250 percent from 2015 to 2016, rising from 195 to 690. Halfway through this year, police have recorded 412 overdoses, with 37 of those people dying.

Addicts shoot up in bathrooms, nod off in parks and call for help even on Atlantic Avenue, the heart of Delray’s entertainment district, according to city records and interviews with recovering addicts.

In October, for example, a 33-year-old man who had moved to Delray Beach from Massachusetts for treatment was found dead of an overdose in a van parked outside a home south of Atlantic Avenue, police records show.

Delray Commissioner Jim Chard said he has watched sober homes proliferate over the past 15 years. He sees the white vans that take addicts to and from treatment and the lab vehicles that come by to pick up drug-test samples, he said.

“I am the only one in my block that isn’t a sober home,” said Chard, who, according to city records, lives within a quarter-mile of nine sober homes, in a neighborhood near South Federal Highway and Southeast Fourth Street. “I’m fortunate that [the sober homes] on the same block as my house are toptier, first-class and really follow all of the rules.”

Nevertheless, Chard has found needles under his mailbox and once had to call an ambulance for a man who had overdosed in his front yard, he said.

He said residents have told him the concentration of sober homes leaves them concerned about the safety of their children and the quality of life in their neighborhoods.

City leaders and experts in the recovery industry say a number of factors lead sober homes to cluster in downtown Delray.

It makes sense for recovering addicts to want to live near downtown, Mayor Cary Glickstein said. It’s more pedestrian-friendly than other parts of the city, and many recovering drug users are employed in the downtown service industry as servers, cooks and bussers, he said.

“The irony is what makes Delray so attractive to live and work here are a lot of the same factors for why the recovery industry targeted Delray,” Glickstein said.

Police Chief Jeff Goldman said he thinks users are more likely to overdose near where they buy their drugs, rather than where they live.

It’s easier for dealers to drop off drugs to their clients near main thoroughfares — where dealers can come and go quickly, he said.

“Now, the dealers are the ones driving around trying to find users, because, unfortunately, they’re plentiful,” Goldman said. “If you’re living in a legit halfway, you’re not looking to get caught in the halfway getting high,” said Taylor Lopez, 25, a recovering addict.

When people in recovery want to get high, they do it away from where they live so people in the home don’t know, said Taylor Lopez, 25, a recovering addict.

“If you’re living in a legit halfway, you’re not looking to get caught in the halfway getting high,” she said. “What people are doing, they are walking out into the nearest spot, usually whatever closest bathroom you can usually find.”

Delray police records show Lopez has overdosed four times, although she said she actually has overdosed nine times since she moved to Delray Beach from her home state of New Jersey in 2015.

Lopez said she has lived in nearly a dozen sober homes since moving to Delray, most of which she considered good, or “like a family.”

Sober homes have spread in Delray since the housing market collapsed during the Great Recession, making it affordable for sober home operators to buy property.

Some homes and treatment centers, run by unscrupulous operators, have come under fire for luring people from other regions of the country with cash, gift cards and discounted rents, primarily to collect on their insurance policies, authorities say. In a federal fraud case, prosecutors on Wednesday accused one sober home and one treatment center of billing insurance companies $58 million over five years.

Until now, Delray has been unable to document the location of sober homes because federal law considered it discriminatory toward addicts. The Justice Department even warned the city in 2002 that it should not enact a law it was considering to ban sober homes.

A legal opinion last year from the Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development opened the door to more regulation. It said a city can deny a request for a group home if it would impose an undue burden on local government or would fundamentally alter the city’s zoning. The proximity of group homes to one another could be considered, the agencies said.

In response, Delray conducted a zoning study in May that found the city has a “large and intense” amount of community housing, most of it sober homes. The report found 183 verified sober homes and 64 unverified group homes that the city thinks are sober homes. The city released the addresses of 120 homes, telling the Sun Sentinel it didn’t have the other addresses to provide.

The study’s author, Illinois-based attorney Daniel Lauber, said he had rarely seen such clusters in more than 40 years of examining zoning and fair housing.

Delray Beach commissioners initially approved a new law in early July that will require licensing of sober homes and other kinds of community residences. One key restriction: New community residences of four or more people should be at least 660 feet — about one city block — from one another. To move closer, they will need a permit.

“I think we are going to reduce the overdose rate, possibly significantly,” Glickstein said. “But I want to be clear, that the purpose of the ordinance is not to eliminate sober homes. The purpose of the ordinance is to ensure all community home operators are prioritizing the health safety and welfare of the occupants of those homes.”

Others say that the law could have a small positive effect but that drug users probably will continue to live in the community even if their sober home is shut down.

“If you shut down a sober home with eight people, they are not leaving Delray,” said Justin Kunzelman, director of business development at Ebb Tide Treatment Centers. “They are just going to another one.”