At the beginning of 2023, Joel Hughes opened a recovery home for men at the entrance of Stonehenge Farm Road in rural Powhatan County. He found the home’s generous accommodations and peaceful surroundings a perfect fit.

The Stonehenge house was one of just two sober homes Hughes was operating through his small nonprofit, Tri-Hope Life Ministries, and the only known recovery house in Powhatan County. 

It was a safe haven for men who had completed a voluntary substance use program at the Chesterfield County Jail and wanted ongoing support in their recovery upon release.

After roughly six months in peaceful operation, a neighbor noticed an unusual number of cars parked at the residence and complained to the county. Not long after that, the county issued a courtesy notice of violation to the property owner, Randy Powers, and advised that a conditional use permit (CUP) would be required for Hughes to continue operating the “halfway house.” 

In the months that followed, according to available records, Hughes did everything the county asked of him, and more.

He submitted a CUP application along with the $1,500 fee. He started the process of addressing issues with the septic system and building code. He agreed to decrease the maximum occupancy of the house from 16 to 12. He hosted a neighborhood meeting at the home, allowing anyone interested to lay eyes on his operation and ask questions. He also offered to help maintain the private road and work with neighbors to address any other concerns.

In a Jan. 18, 2024, public meeting of the Powhatan County Planning Commission, Hughes explained he did not house violent offenders or sex offenders. He told the commission he requires weekly drug tests, curfews and house rules, as most recovery homes do.

Unlike many recovery homes, Hughes reported that the Tri-Hope house had three house leaders, all with roughly two years of sustained recovery. He told them that Tri-Hope residents stay for an average of 337 days — considerably more than the national average — and that he personally visits the Stonehenge home every day.

Between the planning commission meeting and a board of supervisors meeting the following month, several community members showed up to voice their opposition, only two of whom lived on Stonehenge Farm Road.

Despite their vehement opposition, none of them reported negative encounters with the sober home residents, suspected criminal activity or problematic behaviors. Nor did they doubt the legitimacy of Hughes’ operation.

The opposing residents and county supervisors stressed their displeasure with Hughes’ failure to consult the county before opening the home. According to Hughes’ testimony, that transgression resulted from a simple misunderstanding of the process — a mistake for which he spent months apologizing. 

Nonetheless, the remainder of the public comments suggest it wouldn’t have mattered if Hughes had gone through the proper channels up front. While most of the opposing community members acknowledged the nationwide opioid crisis and pressing need for recovery services, they also made it clear they were not amenable to having a recovery house in their community.

Aside from concerns about the lack of government oversight, highway safety and issues with the building and septic system — which Hughes was actively working to correct — community members expressed collective fears about living close to a group of people in recovery, concern for a potential decline in their property values and disapproval for a recovery home sharing the private road.

The following is a sample of their comments from the January 2024 planning commission meeting and the February 2024 board of supervisors meeting.

The proposed use of the property as a recovery facility likely increases the risk of unwelcome behavior on Stonehenge Farm Road, private road, and the associated residents, some of which include children. The business also has the likely impact of reducing the property value of the current residences on Stonehenge Farm Road.

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Many (halfway) houses have poor living conditions with inadequate and poorly trained staff. Conditions often involve violence, abuse, neglect and residents that walk away or escape. Halfway houses are a continuum of incarceration, yet subject to much less security than jails or prisons. Without accountability, we have no way of knowing who or what is being brought into our community. And unfortunately, the covert way that this business was established does not inspire confidence nor engender trust. We, the taxpaying residents of Page Road and High Hill deserve better. 

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While the need for these facilities is nationwide, this program works in cooperation with the Chesterfield County Jail, and the participants come from within that system. The operation of a halfway house on Stonehenge Farm Road, which is a private road, is not appropriate for its location and is not compatible with the general character of the surrounding lands…

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This is a worthwhile and needed program. However, this program being in this particular rural, single-family neighborhood without adequate septic, well, and on a private road is not a proper fit for them or us. 

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I want to make it loud and clear, no one finds fault with the ministry. The ministry is a wonderful thing, and everybody is in favor of what they do, what their program is all about. … It’s merely the location. The elephant in the room to me is we have a pastor and his wife from Chesterfield who live in Chesterfield, who have an agreement with his ministry to service the Chesterfield Police Department jail system … So the inmates from the Chesterfield jail come to Powhatan. The resources that they might be consuming, which you know, we mentioned some of those, what are we getting back from just providing a service for Chesterfield? … It seems to me that this program should be in Chesterfield because that’s where it starts. That’s where it’s churning. That’s where it’s generating its people. And it should stay in Chesterfield. 

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We are well aware of the need (for) rehabilitation for these individuals and are sensitive to that. However, we cannot agree that the location of a private road in an area zoned agricultural and in a residential neighborhood is a proper place to establish a business of any kind. This is a prime location surrounded by beautiful homes, and it would be a shame to allow business to be established right in the center of it, and on a private residential road with hardworking tax-paying citizens of Powhatan County. … It concerns me now for our safety here in the community and for my family. It concerns me for our school systems, being that it is situated on the corner of an intersection that is a bus stop for our children. I am very concerned that this business being at the forefront of our neighborhood and on a quaint private road will severely impact the property values of all surrounding homes with the impact being largely to Stonehenge Farm residents. … It concerns me for the likelihood that parents of our children’s friends will no longer allow them to attend hangouts or events that our children decide to host out of concerns that this type of business is at the forefront of our private road. It also concerns me to possibly lose that peaceful living and always having to be on alert that right down the road from us lives up to possibly 16 individuals that are recovering from hard drugs such as heroin. …  When we were on the hunt for the perfect place to raise our family in Powhatan, I would have never imagined that in four years a business holding up to 16 individuals at a time, used as a halfway house or recovery home, would try to move into a single-family home on a private road that we bought into. And if you had told me that, I would have chosen to move elsewhere, as that does not reflect where I imagine bringing up my family here in Powhatan. … 

The following are excerpts of one resident’s written comment that was attached to the planning commission’s meeting agenda:

It is very disappointing that there are not more ordinances in this county to protect our neighborhood and the county from outsiders bringing their residents with issues to our county instead of keeping them in their own county, i.e. Chesterfield. …

…This is an unsafe situation being brought into our county. I don’t think that there are enough rules/regulations to be imposed in this CUP that will convince me that this is a good fit for our rural neighborhood and Powhatan County. If this is so wonderful, why not keep it in Chesterfield closer to their families and potential jobs with less driving.

Several Tri-Hope residents also showed up to introduce themselves in hopes of dispelling neighbors’ fears.

One of the house leaders:

Look, I love Powhatan. It’s great. I love the serenity of it. I love the peacefulness. And then that plays a part of my recovery. But being in the house with everybody that’s volunteered to come, it’s not like we’re having to police these people. … The biggest thing we got going on at the house is dirty dishes in the sink, y’all. So I mean, I just think it’s really important that y’all know that we invited people to come to the house and hang out with us. We all have children, for the most part. You know, we love family. And I think to turn a blind eye to this situation, I think would be real foolish. This is a problem. It’s a problem across the whole United States, and it needs help. And where do you put us? You know, I’m the same person that sits beside you at the restaurant. I’m the same person that stands beside you in the convenience store. Am I so bad? You know, my children go to your school. My grandchildren, so I just, you know, I ask you to please, please approve it. 

Another house leader:

The guys and the home is not a leper colony. … People are trying to escape the hustle and bustle and the dangers and the harms of everyday life in areas where they were born and raised and are trying to find a place of refuge. And they’re finding it here, and are growing, and it’s a beautiful thing. I just would ask you just take that into consideration.

One community member said he supported the home as long as the county could shut it down in the event of any problems. Another Powhatan County resident and former executive of the Goochland-Powhatan Community Services Board pointed out that recovery housing is needed, “but no one wants it in their community.”

When asked by one of the supervisors, the county sheriff reported there had been no issues with the recovery home. He, too, didn’t even know it was there for several months.

At the Feb. 26, 2024, board of supervisors meeting, when the subject of Hughes’ initial failure to follow proper procedure resurfaced as a central talking point, Hughes made a final apology and plea for the community’s support:

Despite Hughes’ efforts, the board of supervisors — following recommendations of the planning commission — decided in a 4 to 1 vote that Powhatan County’s only known recovery house had to close. The stated reason: Hughes should have followed the rules in the first place. 

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Under the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with substance use disorder are recognized as disabled and entitled to protection from housing discrimination. Local governments are required to make “reasonable accommodations” to allow group homes for people with disabilities to integrate in residential neighborhoods.

According to a 2016 Joint Statement of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice, decisions may not be influenced by community members’ fears surrounding people in a protected class:

When enacting or applying zoning or land use laws, state and local governments may not act because of the fears, prejudices, stereotypes, or unsubstantiated assumptions that community members may have about current or prospective residents because of the residents’ protected characteristics. Doing so violates the Act, even if the officials themselves do not personally share such bias. For example, a city may not deny zoning approval for a low-income housing development that meets all zoning and land use requirements because the development may house residents of a particular protected class or classes whose presence, the community fears, will increase crime and lower property values in the surrounding neighborhood. Similarly, a local government may not block a group home or deny a requested reasonable accommodation in response to neighbors’ stereotypical fears or prejudices about persons with disabilities or a particular type of disability.

In spite of federal protections, Hughes’ experience is not unique to Powhatan County or Virginia. 

Since the FHA was passed in 1988, “There’s just hundreds of cases where communities are throwing up every roadblock they can to group homes,” said Michael Allen, a seasoned civil rights lawyer whose litigation practice focuses on the FHA and ADA.

Allen told me he’s spent four decades “trying to expand housing opportunities for people who need those opportunities in the wake of what has often been irresponsible, rapacious, discriminatory local and state government efforts to restrict them.” 

State Delegate Carrie Coyner, R-Chesterfield, has been working in the same vein, joining with the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences (VARR) since 2022 to codify state-level zoning protections for recovery residences that would make it easier and less expensive for operators to challenge discriminatory zoning.

Her most recent legislation, which is under consideration this General Assembly session, would require all localities to treat certified recovery residences with eight or fewer occupants as “residential occupancy by a single family” for zoning purposes — meaning certified sober home operators could open an unlimited number of homes in any residential neighborhood zoned for single-family use.

On Aug. 20, 2024, when Coyner presented an earlier version of her bill (with no occupancy limit) to the Virginia Housing Commission, Brenda Castañeda — deputy director of advocacy for Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia (HOME of VA) — testified in support of it. 

“In the last six months, I’ve had about four different folks trying to open or operate recovery residences call in with issues dealing with local land use, and zoning authorities putting restrictions on their ability to open or operate such residences,” she told the commission. “One of the biggest issues we’ve had is with Powhatan County.”

Castañeda went on to explain that HOME of VA had filed a housing discrimination lawsuit against the county on Tri-Hope’s behalf. She presented that case as a prime example of why Coyner’s bill was needed. 

“Please, please put me out of business,” she said to the commission. “I would love to move on to other things because there was no housing discrimination.”

While the FHA requires local governments to provide “reasonable accommodation” for group homes, it does not mandate a blanket usurping of local zoning authority, as Coyner’s bill proposes. 

According to the 2016 Joint Statement, “What constitutes a reasonable accommodation is a case-by-case determination based on an individualized assessment.” In the event of alleged discrimination, “A state or local government still has the opportunity to show that the (zoning) practice is necessary to achieve one or more of its substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interests.”

Castañeda also acknowledged the case-by-case analysis standard when questioned by a commission member:

To one fair housing expert I interviewed, as well as many Virginians concerned with the quality of recovery homes, there’s more to consider than the compelling case of a small nonprofit meeting local opposition to the county’s only recovery home.

“See you got two sides of this,” said Daniel Lauber, a city planner and zoning/fair housing attorney with a national reputation for working with more than 100 jurisdictions across the country on FHA-compliant zoning for community residences. “You got the localities who don’t want to let (group homes) in. You’ve got the operators who don’t want any regulation. Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot where you design regulation that is the least drastic means needed to achieve legitimate government goals.”

Coyner’s bill is “overkill,” Lauber told me, because it simply transfers land-use power from the localities to the operators (and their certifying entities) — tipping the scales of power from one extreme to the other. “What she’s doing is what a lot of cities and states did after the Fair Housing Amendment Act was passed in ’88, and they didn’t think it out,” he said. “One reason this is all so damn complicated is it is complicated. … And zoning that really handles it well is complicated.”

Lauber believes recovery homes that are state-certified or licensed should have zoning protections, but not to the extent Coyner proposes.

Her bill doesn’t account for at least two factors Lauber considers both legitimate government interests and critical components of effective zoning: 1) spacing between recovery homes and 2) zoning for different types of recovery homes.

“We’ve got so much factual evidence that … where there’s no requirement for a license or certification, and there’s no spacing distance between (recovery) homes allowed as permitted uses, they cluster,” Lauber told me. 

And you can turn a whole neighborhood and a whole block into a de facto social service district, which undermines the core essence of these homes of achieving normalization and community integration, as well as putting people on the path to long-term sobriety.

In a July 2024 report he prepared for the state of Florida, Lauber recommended establishing a spacing distance that keeps community residences apart “at least the length of an average American block.”  

Under the proposed zoning guidelines — which he says are replicable in any state or locality — operators could still apply to open a recovery home within that distance, but it would require a case-by-case review.

HB 2289 also doesn’t account for variation in how recovery homes function.

Coyner and former VARR President David Rook argue that all certified recovery residences are the functional equivalent of a family, distinct from treatment centers, and equally entitled to enjoy family status in residential neighborhoods:

But the reality of Virginia’s recovery housing landscape is more complicated. What Coyner and Rook describe — people joining together as a family to support one another on the path to long-term recovery — only represents one corner of the sober home ecosphere.

In Virginia, certified recovery homes run along a spectrum, starting with models of shared power and resident-driven length of stay — such as Oxford Houses and NARR Level 1 homes — to those with rapid turnover that function more as unlicensed rehab facilities.

Notwithstanding the well-documented potential for exploitation and abuse in an industry void of independent oversight — a problem government leaders are currently attempting to correct — different recovery housing models might warrant different zoning approaches.

Based on decades of research and practice, Lauber believes zoning laws should distinguish between what he calls “family community residences” and “transitional community residences.” While both should seek to emulate a biological family, the differing degree of resident permanence makes each type of home more or less compatible in different zoning districts.

Family community residences offer a semi-permanent living environment of at least six months. The Tri-Hope recovery house fits that category, as well as homes chartered by Oxford House and some that are certified by VARR. 

In the July 2024 report, Lauber wrote that courts have long recognized that Oxford Houses offer a “relatively permanent living arrangement with no limitation on how long people can live in them,” which is why he classifies them all as family community residences for zoning purposes.

Transitional community residences, on the other hand, are more temporary.

Lauber says transitional community residences should be allowed by right in multi-family districts but should undergo case-by-case review in single-family districts.

“With the transitional homes … their turnover rates (are) much more similar to what you would expect in multifamily housing,” he told me. 

And so that’s why they’d be permitted uses in multifamily districts subject to spacing and licensing, but need to be a special use or conditional use or special exception, whatever term you want to use, in single family districts, where you are looking at the added factor of, will it be compatible with the neighborhood? Some (of) the ones that have people (living in them) for a few weeks probably won’t. Ones that have people in (for) maybe four or five months, there’s a chance they could operate in a manner that would be compatible with the neighborhood. You want to give them the chance to show that they can be.

Without access to VARR’s data, it’s impossible to fully categorize VARR-accredited homes according to Lauber’s definitions. While VARR collects information on resident lengths of stay through a government-funded platform, that data has not been shared with the public.

Nonetheless, reports from dozens of residents — along with numerous internal communications obtained through this project — suggest that many of Central Virginia’s VARR-certified recovery homes are more transitional in nature.

To facilitate a steady flow of Medicaid dollars, rapid turnover in many of these homes happens by design.

“No recovery residence in Virginia currently receives any type of insurance reimbursement,” Rook told the Virginia Housing Commission in August. “It doesn’t happen.”

But Rook didn’t mention that many of Metro Richmond’s recovery homes, including his own, operate in tandem with for-profit outpatient treatment centers. While Medicaid doesn’t directly reimburse sober homes, the operators make their money by funneling residents to the Medicaid-funded outpatient programs — often described as low-quality — that are owned by the operators and/or their business partners. 

Rapid turnover occurs as operators stock the associated sober home beds with people who are detoxing or early enough in their recovery that Medicaid will pay for intensive outpatient services. 

In the following texts, for example, Starfish Recovery & Wellness CEO Frank Bellanger indicates he needs to move residents out of the “program” houses — designated for people in early recovery — in order to open beds for new residents. 

Oftentimes, even the house managers are so early in their recovery that they end up participating in an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) alongside the residents they supervise, according to former residents of multiple organizations as well as text messages I reviewed.

The sober-home-to-outpatient model — which has the potential to blur into criminal territory — appears to be growing within Metro Richmond’s VARR-certified network. 

It started with a group of certified operators, most of whom were in VARR leadership, forcing their residents to attend IOP at River City Comprehensive Counseling Services, owned by VARR Vice Chairman Jimmy Christmas. Former residents reported — and text messages among staff at Starfish and True Recovery confirmed — that the operators often leveraged the threat of jail or eviction to enforce compliance.

In the last year and a half, all of them have expanded to open their own outpatient programs — many in partnership with Christmas — which generate business through the sober homes. 

Last year in Henrico County, when Rook opened a recovery home in connection with his outpatient treatment center, neighbors quickly began reporting problems. Unlike neighbors of the Tri-Hope house — who didn’t notice the home was operating for half of the year — neighbors of Rook’s sober home reported immediate issues such as alcohol use, loud fights and intrusion onto their property (all of which Rook said he addressed). 

In August, I spoke with Cindy Hudson, a next door neighbor to Rook’s recovery house. With a front row seat to the operation, she was especially bothered by how the environment might impact someone hoping to find recovery there:

There was one guy, who his family did deliver him there. And he had a little girl and his mother and apparently his wife, and they were all hugging out front. And he came in and, literally, I started crying because this is somebody (who) their family has such high hopes for their recovery, and they’re sending him into a lion’s den, I feel like, you know? It was wrong.

Neighbors also reported to Henrico County that the home’s residents were “staying for extremely short periods of time and coming and going.”

Due to the high turnover, Henrico County issued a notice of zoning violation to Rook and the property owner, which stated in part:

(The) property does not meet the definition of “family” in the zoning ordinance. That definition explicitly excludes residents of boardinghouses and short-term renters. 

The county also submitted a complaint to VARR, as Rook’s home was in the process of obtaining VARR certification.

In response, VARR’s Bob de Triquet said in an email that the high turnover was normal: “This is a Level 4 recovery residence with defined service start and end dates. Services will be provided for a duration of 30 days.” 

The facts and circumstances surrounding Hughes’ experience in Powhatan County and Rook’s experience in Henrico County couldn’t have been more different. But at the Aug. 20 Virginia Housing Commission hearing, Rook lined up after Hughes’ lawyer to speak about the “discrimination” he, too, faced.

According to Hudson, the neighbors had “no idea” Rook was opening a recovery house until the men had already started moving in. There was no pre-opening “protest” as Rook had claimed, she said.

In any event, Coyner’s bill makes no distinction between the models represented by Hughes’ and Rook’s recovery homes. Under HB 2289, Rook — pending certification — would have the right to replicate the sober-home-to-outpatient model in any single-family neighborhood, in an unlimited number of homes.

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When it comes to zoning for different types of recovery homes, Allen, the civil rights lawyer, has a more cautious perspective:

There is some resonance to this idea that the more you look like a family and the longer you stay, the more protection you should get. I don’t know the business of, you know, these tie-ins between sober home providers and outpatient clinics and aftercare programs and all that sort of thing. I think I am suspicious of any situation where the housing and services provider has leverage over the resident. But I don’t know that increasing or decreasing the amount of Fair Housing Act protection that you get based on whether you’re in column A or column B is necessarily the way to address it. 

While Allen approaches government “meddling” in recovery housing with more skepticism, he was clear that the residents themselves — not just the operators — deserve protections:

Government has a role in protecting vulnerable people. I think that the people themselves, the residents, to the extent that their rights are established in a way that is fairer … the idea of, kind of, standing up for your own rights and having your own right to resist that leverage from the provider has to be a part of this equation. 

In 2022, when Coyner first argued that a zoning bill was needed to protect the housing rights of people in recovery — based on their status as a protected class under federal law — she ironically used the very same bill to successfully remove all tenant rights from that same protected class. As of July 2022, with total exemption from the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (VRLTA), certified recovery house operators enjoy unlimited power to immediately evict residents on a whim for any reason. 

“I think that’s atrocious,” Allen told me after he reviewed the state code. “Tenants/residents of any kind ought to have protection related to their housing and the idea of a ‘blanket removal’ of such protections — for Oxford Houses, non-profit or for-profit sober home providers — is abhorrent to me.”

Allen acknowledged the need for a procedure to temporarily exclude someone from a recovery home in certain circumstances, such as a return to substance use. “Most responsible public policy does allow for that kind of emergency exception,” he said. “But (to) cut it out entirely and give all the power to the operators of group homes or recovery homes strikes me as just absolutely wrong. And so to the extent that I have any position on what the VRLTA says, I think it’s much worse after the 2022 amendment.”

When the combination of zoning protections and removal of tenant rights made it out of a Virginia House of Delegates subcommittee that year, National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR) Executive Director Dave Sheridan called it “the best legislative model for recovery residence support in the nation.” 

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Countless people I’ve spoken with over the last couple of years — government employees; mental health professionals; sober home employees, residents and their family members — agree that more residential recovery options are needed. 

But many of those same people say there’s an equally, if not more critical, need for meaningful oversight to correct the heavy power imbalance that currently exists between operators and residents. 

At the same time, the extent to which discriminatory zoning is to blame for limited recovery housing options throughout Virginia is unclear. 

There’s no statewide list that tracks non-certified recovery homes, but the map below reflects every locality that has at least one certified recovery house.

I reached out to the non-represented cities and counties with a list of questions about how their zoning affects recovery housing. Out of the 40 that responded, only two said there had been resistance to a recovery home in their jurisdictions. Thirty reported having no recent record or knowledge of anyone seeking permission to open a recovery home — including several localities that present little to no barriers for recovery housing, such as those that don’t limit the number of unrelated people who can live together as a functional family. Two vaguely referenced preliminary inquiries they had received in the past. And six reported they don’t have zoning at all. 

Hanover County was among those that reported no known requests — a locality touted as discriminatory by a an operator who testified in support of Coyner’s initial zoning bill.

On Feb. 3, 2022, Starfish’s Bellanger told members of a House Subcommittee on Counties, Cities and Towns that he couldn’t open a recovery home in Hanover County, where he lives, because of “discrimination.”

In Hanover County, anyone seeking to operate a recovery residence must apply for a special exception. According to Kristin Dunlop, the county’s director of communications and community engagement, “This process is designed to provide a clear pathway for recovery residences to operate while ensuring compliance with state laws, maintaining transparency and determining where and how they best fit with neighbors and the community.”

When asked about Bellanger’s allegation, Dunlop wrote: “While we cannot comment directly on Mr. Bellanger’s claim, I can share that Hanover County has no record of him applying to open a recovery home here.” She said the staff was also “not aware of any recovery residences that applied or sought Board approval.”

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Solving access and oversight issues effectively leaves much room for debate, even among fair housing advocates.

HOME of VA’s Castañeda supported the earlier and more liberal version of Coyner’s bill that established by-right zoning for certified recovery homes with no limit on the number of occupants. (Whether she was also aware of the lack of tenant rights for those residents is unknown.)

Attorney Allen leans less in favor of top-down government regulation, such as mandatory certification, and more in favor of protections for individual residents’ rights. He supported the idea of establishing a Resident Bill of Rights, a human rights advocate point of contact for each recovery home, a hotline for residents and community members and a restoration of tenant rights.

Attorney Lauber is a proponent of both statewide zoning provisions for community residences (with more liberal occupancy limits) and mandatory state licensing or certification. In Florida, he supported the idea of mandatory certification by Florida’s NARR affiliate, which is already contracted by the state to oversee Florida’s voluntary certification process, similar to what VARR does in Virginia. But, he added: “There certainly is a thin line between any NARR affiliates that are largely serving the interests of a group of sober home operators and those that are more focused on serving folks in recovery.”

Coyner, VARR, Oxford House and Powhatan County did not respond to a request for comment.

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Coyner’s zoning bill (HB 2289) is scheduled to be heard this Friday, Jan. 24, by House Subcommittee #3 on Counties, Cities and Towns. The subcommittee meets at 7 a.m. in House Committee Room B – 205 of the General Assembly Building.

To sign up to speak or leave a written public comment, click here.

Senate Bill 838 — the one I covered earlier this month that 1) mandates state certification of all Virginia recovery homes and 2) convenes a workgroup under the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to revamp the certification process — was not heard last week as scheduled. The bill was re-referred to the Senate Committee on Rehabilitation and Social Services, which meets on Fridays at 8 a.m. in Senate Room A of the General Assembly Building. I will post another update once the bill is placed on the committee’s docket.

I also plan to continue reporting on both bills as they move through the legislative process.

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