Sober House issue in Palm Beach County ? (Miami, Delray Beach: apartment complexes, rentals)

[Balkins]

Ran across this article regarding Sober Houses that are popping up all over PB County. They are not Germain to poor neighborhoods only.

LINK

Is this a problem everywhere or is PB county (particularly lake worth, delray and west palm beach) the new haven for this biz?

I was told there are now Sober Houses on Singer Island (older apartment complexes being turned into SH establishments).

Do the other 2 counties (Dade/Broward) have the same issues?

?

What can be done?

[boston904]

Originally Posted by Balkins

Ran across this article regarding Sober Houses that are popping up all over PB County. They are not Germain to poor neighborhoods only.

LINK

Is this a problem everywhere or is PB county (particularly lake worth, delray and west palm beach) the new haven for this biz?

I was told there are now Sober Houses on Singer Island (older apartment complexes being turned into SH establishments).

Do the other 2 counties (Dade/Broward) have the same issues?

?

What can be done?

There's about 5 in Juno Beach. They are all young men and women from the north in their 20's The counselor's take them to the beach where they all smoke cigarettes and put them out in the sand or the ocean and they leave their water bottles and other trash when they go back to their sober home. Looks like a scam on the taxpayer but hey that's old news

[klaucka]

Originally Posted by boston904

There's about 5 in Juno Beach. They are all young men and women from the north in their 20's The counselor's take them to the beach where they all smoke cigarettes and put them out in the sand or the ocean and they leave their water bottles and other trash when they go back to their sober home. Looks like a scam on the taxpayer but hey that's old news

so so true. i live on east side of delray close to atlantic in a great neighborhood (supposedly high end with $1m+ homes) EXCEPT for the sober houses. all i do is pick up the trash they drop when walking back from the cvs or 7 eleven, oh yea and the little zip lock bags of heroin too. i saw someone shooting up outside a nice retail store on a friday afternoon on atlantic ave. the delray PD and EMTs are answering so many overdose calls per day (for one guy they had to revive him TWICE in the same day) that now we have to pay for more ambulances and personnel to just deal with the ODs rather than protect our community. i hear about two ambulances a day coming from my these homes - i am guessing there are at least ten in my neighborhood.

i am sure there are some good sober homes but from what i can see most seem to be legalized drug dens. delray spent $12m in legal fees to try to make them illegal but lost when the ACLU got involved to support the home operators and they won since addiction is considered a disability and somehow the homes were protected through the disabilities act. with that, i am not sure what can be done to shut them down and as we all know the demand for rehab and sober homes just keeps going up. i do feel bad for these addicts as i can imagine this is a horrible way to live, but these sober homes obviously arent helping them and unfortunately they are RUINING my community.

[klaucka]

i just read the article. most of it is spot on except for the position that homeowners are casting unncessary judgement or worries about sober homes because of some lack of understanding or unjustified fear of addicts. stupidly on my part i wasnt aware of this problem and delray as ground zero for this when i purchased my property, so i can say i came in pretty much unaware and hence without preconceived notions on this problem. i just experienced first hand the rude people, TRASH (when I saw the trash streets of Rio of watching the Olympics, I was like wow looks just like Delray Beach! sorry the trash just really sets me off in such a beautiful place), ambulances, needles and drugs on the street and then made my judgement. this is not an issue about people casting judgement, it is the reality we all live every day dealing with this. oh, and if all that didn't hammer the point home, a few years ago when we were heading back to our car parked on the a1a on a sunday at about 6pm after a beach walk, i was the first responder to a poor drunk man that committed suicide by shooting himself in the head literally right in front of me. If that didn't hammer the point home, nothing would.

It makes me very sad because i love this town, but wonder if i should sell before the ****e totally hits the fan.

[OptimusPrime69]

Send all the bums and drug addicts to naples, FL..... There's less people there, it's an isolated little city on the west coast. Perfect for bums and junkies.

[ByeByeLW]

Originally Posted by klaucka

i just read the article. most of it is spot on except for the position that homeowners are casting unncessary judgement or worries about sober homes because of some lack of understanding or unjustified fear of addicts. stupidly on my part i wasnt aware of this problem and delray as ground zero for this when i purchased my property, so i can say i came in pretty much unaware and hence without preconceived notions on this problem. i just experienced first hand the rude people, TRASH (when I saw the trash streets of Rio of watching the Olympics, I was like wow looks just like Delray Beach! sorry the trash just really sets me off in such a beautiful place), ambulances, needles and drugs on the street and then made my judgement. this is not an issue about people casting judgement, it is the reality we all live every day dealing with this. oh, and if all that didn't hammer the point home, a few years ago when we were heading back to our car parked on the a1a on a sunday at about 6pm after a beach walk, i was the first responder to a poor drunk man that committed suicide by shooting himself in the head literally right in front of me. If that didn't hammer the point home, nothing would.

It makes me very sad because i love this town, but wonder if i should sell before the ****e totally hits the fan.

Klaucka, I can relate.

I wish I had done more research into good ol' LW before I moved here.

You think - a little town by the beach. That's desirable; what could go wrong.

There are two vocal bloggers here in LW: one is overly optimistic and sees things with those proverbial rosy shades.

The other is very negative; however, her negativity is much closer to the truth.

I wish I had found those blogs years ago. Then again, it was the height of the boom when it all seemed nothing but up.

When I lived in Delray (still work there, but don't pay much attention to what's in the news about it), I was astonished at how the terrible things that Iknew happened there (my coworkers and I see a lot of stuff due to our work) never made it into the news. They certainly would somewhere else!

Delray was really really good at image management during the "revitalization" or whatever you call it phase. All America city, etc. Definitely a place that's great at self-promotion.

Delray is a perfect example of fake it until you make it. I guess you could say that in many ways I certainly has "made it".

I am so sorry you went through that terrible experience at the beach. I can remember all the times I walked there very late at night years ago without even considering a problem.

[rainroosty]

Originally Posted by OptimusPrime69

Send all the bums and drug addicts to naples, FL..... There's less people there, it's an isolated little city on the west coast. Perfect for bums and junkies.

That's absurd. Ship them all to Miami, the cesspool of the U.S.A..

[veggienut]

I was looking for a place to live a long time ago in Delray and the place looked run down, young people smoking cigs and I thought for this expensive price and the way it looks there is no way I could be at the right address. I found someone there and found out it was a half-way house~! And it was the right address, but the street continued like a few blocks over or something but had the same address as this
half-way house. That's when I found out there are tons there in Delray.

[900rr]

Delray beach is invaded with "questionable" addiction recovery businesses. Most of them provide little or no help for recovery. They suck insurance and (or) family money and dump addicts on the streets. Now we have a junkie zombies walking on the streets of Delay. Stuck in Florida with no money or support. Overdose and crime rates skyrocketing. This a serious problem and needs to stop.

[veggienut]

Originally Posted by 900rr

Delray beach is invaded with "questionable" addiction recovery businesses. Most of them provide little or no help for recovery. They suck insurance and (or) family money and dump addicts on the streets. Now we have a junkie zombies walking on the streets of Delay. Stuck in Florida with no money or support. Overdose and crime rates skyrocketing. This a serious problem and needs to stop.

This is so very sad Someone there told me that they give free bus tickets to the homeless up there and that is how they end up there. But I know someone personally who has issues with her kid here in Kentucky and the way her insurance works (and pays for) was to send her son to Delray for rehab. He lived in one of those cute little cottage homes on Swifton (which I never knew were rentals or for people in rehabs). He had to work to pay for rent, etc and went to rehab. None of it worked out for him but insurance paid. I don't really recall how it can pay for his health issues in another state, but Florida rules are weird and works there.