Flop Houses, a call for certified recovery homes in Delaware

DELAWARE – Recovery homes are one form of treatment to help get people on the road to getting clean, but Maryland and Delaware do not require these homes to be certified. This can lead to what is known as a flop house.

One that lacks the standards of a certified recovery home, which some warn can lead to dangerous outcomes. State Representative Kerri Evelyn Harris is fighting to change this with House Bill 114, requiring recovery homes to have proper certification in Delaware.

“Matthew Klosowski, who this bill is named after, had a bad experience with a recovery house that resulted in his death.”

Klosowski is one of many across the State of Delaware who died from an accidental overdose at a recovery home. House Bill 114 would set the standard for recovery houses statewide by requiring them to be certified by the state. There are two levels of certification, level one and level two. Tish Ottey is co-owner of Homes for Hope, a certified recovery home in Maryland.

“People in early recovery that are in need of support within their living environment.”

You can find a similar certification process as Delaware across state lines in Maryland.

Tish Ottey operates Hope or Homes LLC out of Berlin.

She and her Husband provide a recovery home for men struggling with substance abuse disorder in order to give them a solid foundation in recovery for the opportunity to build their lives back up from rock bottom.

“Many of the men that come in have kind of, for lack of a better term, burned all their bridges, so they don’t come in with a birth certificate, they don’t come in with a social security card, they don’t come in with food stamps,” Ottey said. “You look at it as if you were starting your life over, sometimes that happens several times. We assist them with all of that.”

Representative Harris says she has seen the struggle of substance abuse disorder firsthand with a cousin who suffered from the disease. The number, 114, was actually chosen because of her birthday, November 4th, and her positive experience in a certified recovery home heavily influenced the legislation.

“My cousin had the exact opposite while she had bad experiences, she had a really great experience as well with amazing counselors who let her see who she was again who got her back on the road to recovery.”