How to Run a Sober Living House: Rules, Testing, Fees, and Fair Housing

What a sober living house is, and what it is not

A sober living house, also called a recovery residence, is shared housing for people who want to live without alcohol or drugs while they rebuild ordinary life: work, family, meetings, money. Residents rent a bed or a room, share the kitchen and the living room, and agree to house rules that a normal room rental would never include, starting with staying sober.

It is not treatment. A house that offers clinical services such as counseling or medical care is a different kind of business with its own licensing. The National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR), the national group that publishes the most widely used standard, sorts homes into four levels. Level I homes are peer-run, like Oxford Houses, and are governed by the residents. Level II homes are monitored, usually with a senior resident or house manager, and this is what most people mean by sober living. Level III homes are supervised, with staff and structured weekly programming. Level IV homes combine housing with clinical treatment.

Decide which level you are running before you write a single rule, because the level decides who you need on staff, what your fee has to cover and what your local and state rules expect. Most owners who come to this from rent-by-the-room are running, or planning, a Level II home: a house manager, house meetings, testing and house rules, with any clinical services left to outside providers.

• Level I: peer-run, residents govern the house
• Level II: monitored, a house manager and house rules
• Level III: supervised, staff and structured programming
• Level IV: clinical services inside the home

House rules every resident signs before move-in

The house rules are the product. A resident chooses a sober living house because the rules are there, so write them down plainly and give them to applicants before anyone pays. A resident who read the rules and signed them is the one most likely to keep them, and the one least able to argue later that a rule was a surprise.

Most houses cover the same ground: no alcohol or drugs on the property or in the body, how prescription medication is stored and disclosed, a curfew and how it can be extended, overnight guests (often none for the first weeks), required house meetings, chores, meeting attendance or other recovery activity, and how residents treat each other. Add the ordinary room-rental rules too: quiet hours, the kitchen, parking, smoking, trash.

Keep the rules identical for everyone in the house and keep the signed copy with each resident's lease. When you change a rule, give the new version to every resident with a date it starts, and get it signed again. Rules that change from resident to resident are where unfairness, and fair housing complaints, start.

• Sobriety, on and off the property
• Prescription medication: disclosed and stored the way the house says
• Curfew and how to ask for an exception
• Overnight guests and visiting hours
• House meetings, chores and recovery activity
• One version for everybody, signed and dated

• Free co-living house rules template you can adapt

A drug and alcohol testing policy that is fair and written down

Testing is how a monitored house keeps its promise to the residents who are doing the work. The policy should answer five questions in writing: when tests happen (at move-in, at random, and when there is reason to believe someone has used), what kind of test, who collects it and how privately, what happens to a positive result, and how a resident can dispute one. RentCaddie has no drug-testing feature; you will use a test supplier and keep the results in your own files.

Wording that holds up is specific and dull. For example: "Residents agree to drug and alcohol testing at move-in, at random, and when staff observe signs of use. Tests are collected by staff of the same gender where possible, in private. A resident may ask for a confirmation test at a laboratory. A confirmed positive result is handled under the Return to Use section of these rules." Have a lawyer in your state read your version, because testing, privacy and the handling of medical information are governed by state law as well as federal law.

Prescribed medication needs its own paragraph. Many residents take medication that their doctor prescribed, including medication used to treat opioid addiction. Turning those residents away or treating them as having used can raise disability discrimination questions. Decide your approach with professional advice, write it down, and apply it the same way to every applicant.

• When: move-in, random, and for reason
• How: what test, collected by whom, in private
• What a positive result starts, step by step
• How a resident disputes a result
• How prescribed medication is handled
• Where results are kept, and who can see them

Recovery is protected under fair housing law. Current use is not.

The federal Fair Housing Act protects people with disabilities, and the regulation that defines disability lists alcoholism and drug addiction, other than addiction caused by current illegal use of a controlled substance, as impairments. The Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) say the same in their joint statement on group homes: current users of illegal controlled substances are not protected by that status. Someone in recovery generally is.

That line shapes almost everything you write. You may run a house only for people in recovery, require sobriety and test for it, because current illegal use is outside the protection. What you should not do is treat a person's history of addiction, or their prescribed medication, as a reason to refuse them, and you should be ready to consider reasonable accommodations: changes to a rule, policy or practice a person with a disability needs to use the housing, which the Act requires housing providers to make when they are reasonable.

This is also why "one slip and you are out tonight" is the wrong policy to write. A return to use is common in recovery, and a written process (a conversation, a change in the resident's plan, a short-term move to a higher level of care with a path back, or an ending of the agreement with notice) is fairer, easier to apply consistently and far easier to defend than a lockout. Whether you can remove someone quickly at all depends on whether your state treats your residents as tenants, which brings eviction law with it. Ask a local lawyer before you rely on any removal process.

• Recovery from addiction: a protected disability
• Current illegal drug use: not protected by that status
• Prescribed medication: decide your policy with advice, apply it to everyone
• Reasonable accommodation requests: answer them, in writing
• A return to use: a written process with due notice, not a lockout

Fees by the bed, and what the fee has to cover

Most sober living houses charge per bed, weekly or monthly, with a shared bedroom costing less than a private one. Charge one all-in fee: rent, utilities, internet, house supplies and the house manager's time. Residents early in recovery often have little money and irregular pay, and an all-in weekly fee they can plan around is kinder and easier to collect than rent plus a pile of shared bills.

Write down exactly what the fee includes and what it does not (testing supplies, a lost key, damage). If you charge a move-in fee or a deposit, say whether it is refundable and on what terms; deposit rules are set by your state, and a deposit is the resident's money held by you, not income. Keep each resident's balance separate even when two people share a room, so that one person falling behind never becomes the roommate's problem.

Price from your costs, not from the house down the street. Add up the mortgage or rent on the building, utilities, insurance, testing, the house manager's pay or rent credit, supplies and an allowance for empty beds, then divide by the beds you will realistically fill. Empty beds in a recovery house often come in clusters, so plan for more vacancy than a normal room rental.

• One fee per bed, weekly or monthly
• Say what is included and what is extra
• Deposits follow your state's rules and stay the resident's money
• Each resident's balance kept separate
• Price from your costs, with room for empty beds

Certification, local rules and your insurance

NARR's standard is applied by state affiliates, which certify homes against it. In some states certification is voluntary; in others, state agencies, courts and treatment providers refer residents only to certified homes, or public money is tied to it. Find your state's affiliate through NARR before you open, read what they inspect, and decide whether to apply. Even if you never certify, their checklist is a good list of what a careful house looks like.

Check local rules early. Zoning, occupancy limits, rental registration and fire safety rules all apply, and the federal fair housing law limits how cities may treat housing for people with disabilities; HUD and the Department of Justice explain those limits in their joint statement. Tell your insurance agent exactly how the house is used. A policy written for an ordinary rental may not expect eight unrelated adults, a house manager and a testing program.

• Find your state's affiliate and read its standard
• Ask whether referrals or funding in your state need certification
• Zoning, occupancy and fire safety: check before you open
• Tell your insurer how the house is really used

Records that protect the residents and you

Keep a file for each resident: the signed rules and agreement, the dated fee ledger, every test with its date and result, incident notes written the same day, and any accommodation request with your written answer. Write notes about what happened, not opinions about the person. If a resident ever challenges a decision, these records are what shows you followed your own written process the same way for everyone.

Treat that file as private. Information about someone's recovery is sensitive, and federal and state rules can limit what a program shares and with whom. Keep test results and anything medical away from housemates, away from group chats and out of any shared spreadsheet.

RentCaddie runs the housing side of a sober living house: each bed or room on its own lease with its own fee, weekly or monthly charges collected online with each resident's balance kept separate, the house rules attached to every lease and signed electronically, and a private record of each resident's documents and messages. Testing, clinical notes and recovery plans stay with your testing provider and your own records.

• Signed rules and agreement for every resident
• A dated ledger for every fee
• Every test, dated, with the result
• Incident notes written the same day
• Accommodation requests and your written answer

• How RentCaddie runs a sober living house by the bed
• How RentCaddie runs a house rented by the room