TribLIVE s Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
It is no secret that the coronavirus pandemic isn’t the first health crisis Pennsylvania has faced in recent years.
Until a never-before-seen disease started to burn around the world last year, there was another epidemic that was discussed on an almost daily basis.
The opioid crisis has killed more than 766,000 people since 1999. Millions more have suffered the effects of addiction, survived overdoses, lost jobs, gone to jail, or had their families shattered by the drugs. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1.27 million are actively receiving medical treatment for their addiction.
Alejandro A. Alvarez / Philadelphia Inquirer
In December 2017, Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation to increase oversight for drug and alcohol recovery houses a measure that lawmakers said was needed to fight the opioid epidemic and protect vulnerable people from being exploited.
The action by lawmakers came after years of complaints from local government leaders and some recovery advocates, who said profit-driven owners packed people into homes, provided few rules and little support, and put residents at greater risk of relapsing.
But more than three years later, recovery homes believed to number in the thousands continue to operate without state oversight, Spotlight PA has found. The state’s Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs missed a June 2020 deadline to, for the first time, create a certification or licensing process for them.
WHYY
By
Ed Mahon, Spotlight PAJanuary 25, 2021
Fred Way, executive director of the Pennsylvania Alliance of Recovery Residences. (Alejandro A. Alvarez/Philadelphia Inquirer)
This story originally appeared on Spotlight PA.
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters.
In December 2017, Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation to increase oversight for drug and alcohol recovery houses a measure that lawmakers said was needed to fight the opioid epidemic and protect vulnerable people from being exploited.
The action by lawmakers came after years of complaints from local government leaders and some recovery advocates, who said profit-driven owners packed people into homes, provided few rules and little support, and put residents at greater risk of relapsing.
Department officials said earlier this month they were completing an internal review of draft regulations and planned to send them to the attorney general’s office by the end of January, but couldn’t commit to a timeline for when licensing and oversight will begin.
“I’m saddened by that because the longer it takes to set that up, the more individuals could pass away in these unstructured recovery homes,” said Amber Longhitano, a former council member in Bristol Township, Bucks County, who pushed state lawmakers to create oversight for recovery homes.
Beyond the delay, there’s a more fundamental problem with the oversight effort: It’s voluntary, though there are incentives.
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — In December 2017, Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation to increase oversight for drug and alcohol recovery houses — a