Drug addiction and overdose deaths have been on the rise in Virginia since the State Health Commissioner declared a public health emergency in 2016. Once chalked up to moral failing, addiction is now widely recognized as a complex brain disease — one that hijacks its victims’ quality of life, destabilizes families, and leaves virtually no community untouched.

Despite the devastation, addiction is treatable, and many people recover. But doing so often means navigating a system of care where the risk of exploitation can be as real as the disease itself.

In Virginia and across the country, one fast-growing piece of this system is recovery housing. Also known as sober homes, these non-clinical group homes are often owned and operated by peers — people who share the lived experience of addiction and recovery. They promise a safe, supportive, drug-free environment for residents to rebuild their lives after breaking the cycle of active addiction.

When someone begins that breakthrough — whether triggered by incarceration, family intervention or a choice to get help — they often start their recovery at rock bottom, buried by the weight of stigma, shame, unmasked trauma, severed relationships, empty bank accounts, loss of freedom, and fear that they might use again. That first year of abstinence, known as early recovery, is a vulnerable period haunted by a high risk of relapse and overdose — which can be deadly.

Ethically run homes can play a vital role in helping people navigate this fragile stage. But the industry is largely unregulated, leaving residents vulnerable to operators who might treat them more like commodities than human beings.

As sober home numbers have surged in recent years, so have public concerns about quality and safety. Reports from across the country have spotlighted misleading advertising, poor living conditions and unethical partnerships between housing operators and treatment providers. Rogue operators have been exposed for funneling residents to specific outpatient programs in exchange for financial kickbacks — a corrupt practice that puts profits before life-saving care. Hard-hit states such as Florida and California have drawn Congressional scrutiny and spurred tougher federal anti-kickback laws. At the state level, there have been growing efforts across the country to weed out predatory operators.

Virginia responded in 2020 by creating a voluntary certification system for recovery residences, administered through the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS). In theory, this formal state certification signals that an operator is above board, helping families and professionals distinguish “bad actors” from “good actors.” 

In practice, however, the state doesn’t verify whether operators meet any minimum standards. The job of vetting and monitoring has instead been outsourced to two nongovernmental organizations: Oxford House and the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences (VARR) — the Metro Richmond-based state affiliate of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR).

Oxford House oversees only non-commercial, democratically run homes formed under its own charters. In virtually all other recovery homes, individual operators hold all the power. These homes fall under the authority of VARR — an organization made up almost entirely of recovery house owners and operators themselves.

Despite the clear conflicts of interest in VARR’s leadership, the state has entrusted the organization — and funded it generously — to safeguard the welfare of people living in Virginia’s sober homes. This project begins by examining how that combination of money and power has benefited a small network of Richmond-area operators, and how it has affected the people recovery homes are meant to serve.

The individuals and organizations highlighted have long been credited with helping people in need. But emerging evidence suggests they may now be contributing to the very abuses they were entrusted to prevent.

Background on key players

Jimmy Christmas

• Board member, VARR
• Licensed clinical social worker
• Owner, River City family of mental health and substance use treatment companies
• Owner, Urban Recovery RVA (for-profit recovery housing)

A self-described person in long-term recovery, Jimmy Christmas founded the Richmond-based River City Comprehensive Counseling Services in 2008. By 2014, with a prior year revenue of $3.9 million, Fortune magazine ranked it the 13th fastest-growing business in America’s inner cities and No. 1 in its industry. In the years that followed, Christmas expanded his portfolio and geographic reach, starting opioid treatment programs in Hanover and Staunton (both later sold) and adding two sister companies: River City Residential Services and River City Integrative Counseling Services. Collectively, these outpatient programs serve hundreds, if not thousands, of people with substance use disorder every year.

In 2017, Virginia Medicaid dramatically expanded access to substance use treatment, presenting lucrative opportunities for clinical providers and housing operators working in tandem. That same year, three of Christmas’ peers (profiled below) entered the recovery residence industry, opening Richmond-area homes that would soon be packed with Medicaid-eligible individuals. 

David Rook

• Board member and past president, VARR
• Owner, True Recovery RVA (for-profit recovery housing)
• Co-founder, Imagine the Freedom Recovery Foundation (nonprofit providing shared staffing for True Recovery and WAR Foundation, discussed below)
• Co-founder, FAVOR of VA (recovery advocacy organization)
• Co-owner with Jimmy Christmas, River City Residential Services

David Rook is widely described as charismatic, likable, and skilled at influencing people. He entered the sober home industry after working for The McShin Foundation, a Richmond-area nonprofit that also provides recovery housing. According to sources who were close to Rook at the time, his employment with McShin ended after he was caught giving Suboxone — a Schedule III controlled substance — to an acquaintance. Rook didn’t comment on the unauthorized distribution of Suboxone, but he said “there were unfortunate circumstances and poor choices made” at the time of his resignation. McShin President John Shinholser did not respond to a request for comment regarding Rook’s departure.

Within weeks of leaving McShin in 2017, Rook founded True Recovery with help from Shinholser, who has since divested his interests in the company. During his first year in business, Rook spearheaded efforts to re-establish VARR — the nonprofit tasked with upholding ethical standards in recovery housing — which had been inactive for some time after its initial founding in 2012. While serving as VARR’s president, Rook guided True Recovery through rapid growth, making it a local industry giant within two years. By his third year in business, he had positioned himself as one of Virginia’s most prominent figures in the recovery sector — still leading VARR, now newly empowered to certify and oversee recovery residences on behalf of the state.

Anthony and Kate Grimes

• Co-founders, WAR Foundation (for-profit recovery housing)
• Co-founders with David Rook, Imagine the Freedom Recovery Foundation
• Anthony Grimes: executive director, VARR
• Kate Grimes: past executive director, VARR; owner and CEO, WAR Foundation

Anthony and Kate Grimes describe themselves as people in long-term recovery who are passionate about helping others find recovery. Kate’s bio portrays her as “an example to all that recovery is possible and that lost dreams awaken and new possibilities arise.”

The Grimeses co-founded WAR Foundation in 2017, the same year Rook entered the recovery housing industry. Although the word “foundation” implies a charitable nonprofit, WAR Foundation is a for-profit company. In a recent bio, Anthony described it as “a recovery residence foundation.” The Grimeses did not respond to a request for comment on the company name.

During their first year in business, they partnered with Rook to rebuild VARR and secure its status as a state-sanctioned sober home credentialing entity. In 2019, VARR hired Anthony as its first full-time paid executive director, replacing Kate, who had served as volunteer executive director until then.

The North Parham Road powerhouse

In 2021, Rook nominated Christmas to the VARR board. That same year, Christmas, Rook, and the Grimeses consolidated their business headquarters and VARR under one roof — an office building on North Parham Road in Henrico County known as the Imagine the Freedom Center.

Christmas called the site a “World Class” recovery center. But findings from this investigation suggest the North Parham Road hub has, in many ways, operated as the focal point for coordinated misuse of public funds and exploitation of the vulnerable people those funds were meant to help.

The first three installments of The Parham Papers detail alleged abuses of power by this group, including exploiting residents for their Medicaid benefits, steering substantial taxpayer dollars to their own for-profit organizations, drug use by certain operators, and shielding each other from accountability.

Beginning with the fourth article, published in May 2023, the series expands to examine new organizations as the investigation into money and power in Richmond’s recovery housing industry continues.

This article was edited for clarity and readability, with minor content changes to reflect the project’s broadened scope and timeline.

Next> The Medicaid Cash Cow

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