AUGUSTA, Maine — First it was cocaine. Then it was heroin. After Jen Jewett fought off addictions to both drugs in her mid-30s, alcohol and crack came calling.
She found herself on the streets of Augusta, struggling to get by, and she knew she needed help in order to save her life and have the opportunity to see her three children again.
Her application to a recovery home that offers addiction treatment and peer support but often has limited space was denied in 2021. Jewett’s life spiraled further until 2022, when she finally was admitted to the Crossroads addiction treatment center for women in Windham. It allows children to visit and younger kids not yet in school to stay overnight with their mothers.
A 28-day stay coupled with additional time in peer-run recovery housing helped her get clean and spend more time with her kids who live with their fathers: an 18-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter in Connecticut, and a 7-year-old daughter in Maine.
Jewett, 42, and her fiance are also expecting their first child together in September. They live in a three-bedroom apartment by the Blaine House, or Gov. Janet Mills’ “backyard,” as she put it during a recent conversation.
She is one of the lucky ones. In much of Maine, particularly in western and northern areas, recovery housing for mothers and their kids is hard to find. No recovery homes allow fathers with children in all of New England. All of this can set people in recovery back and lead to further instability in their families and personal lives.
The need for more homes that accept parents and their kids cuts across two of Maine’s most pressing issues: a lack of affordable, quality housing and a drug crisis driven by opioids that led to 716 overdose deaths in 2022, the third straight year the state broke a grim record. Lawmakers are trying to boost recovery units and a new home accepting families opens in Lewiston in September, but advocates say more units are needed now.
“There is a dearth of rural recovery housing,” Ron Springel, a retired doctor who serves as executive director of the Maine Association for Recovery Residences.
How recovery homes help
The association, which annually certifies recovery housing in the state, said it inspects just three homes accepting women and minor children, out of 75 total certified residences in Maine with 800 beds that are mostly located in and around cities such as Bangor, Portland, Augusta and Lewiston. A few other state-recognized organizations run recovery homes in smaller towns including Boothbay Harbor and Lincoln but are not included in the tally.
Certified recovery homes generally offer a shared living and meeting space, resources from on-site staff who may have gone through recovery themselves and support for the reunification of residents and their children. They are not the same as detox centers, which could see their numbers increase thanks to legislation state lawmakers passed this month, or re-entry homes.
“Without that support around reunifying a family, a mom can feel so disconnected and feel hopeless and feel like she’s just not doing enough,” Jewett said. “Sometimes, that’s enough to make somebody go out and relapse, because they get this mentality that nothing is going to get better.”
Residents of the substance-free homes often receive financial help through MaineCare, General Assistance or other rental subsidies. They can work, volunteer or attend school before returning to the house, where they are responsible for chores and attending weekly meetings that cover recovery activities, concerns, goals and other topics.
Maine Association for Recovery Residences, an affiliate of the National Association of Recovery Residences, was founded in 2016 when a group of operators grew concerned about the growth of “sober houses” that had no oversight, ethical or safety standards. Jewett said she “could not have my kids at those places.”
Since July 2022, recovery homes in Maine have had to attain organization’s certification if they receive government housing support. State laws also require them to follow fire code regulations like any single-family homes and have two doses of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone on every floor with a bedroom. The organization says the average resident stays in a home for about six months.
Hurdles to housing
These kinds of homes are hard to develop. It is “tough enough” to open up any recovery home, Springel noted, but creating housing for parents with kids and sorting out child care is a “tremendous burden on any organization.”
An additional challenge comes in the form of “NIMBYism” from neighbors who oppose recovery homes over a belief the residents will cause problems, Springel noted. He said those concerns are unfounded, despite attending many town meetings where residents will acknowledge family members with substance use disorders but still say they do not want “those people” near them.
“Once they know that house is going to have people who are doing the right thing — they help rake leaves, they help the little old ladies across the street, they take in trash cans — they become welcome members,” Springel said. “But it takes a while.”
Still, Springel and other advocates believe the state’s political climate is favorable for tackling the housing and addiction crises. Several bills before the Legislature are seeking to boost the numbers of family recovery homes in rural Maine or make it easier to access them.
Help for Maine’s less populated areas could also come in a bill from Rep. Laura Supica, D-Bangor, that would initially give the Maine State Housing Authority $1.5 million to help build rural recovery residences for families. The bill with bipartisan cosponsorship is awaiting floor votes in the House and Senate, although it will need funding from top lawmakers.
Jewett is currently unemployed while pregnant, but her fiance has a steady job. She stays busy, by attending recovery meetings, testifying in favor of bills to create more housing and giving rides to women going from detox to sober homes. Assisting others is also a way for her to model positive behavior for her children after she lost custody of them for several years.
Jewett said she still does not see her older children in Connecticut as often but is grateful for any of the visits they share. She wants to see Maine build more certified recovery housing to ensure more families don’t experience the pain and division caused by addiction.
“There’s a need for it,” Jewett said. “There’s a want for it, and I strongly believe that with these types of houses, parents will be able to find that peace and solidarity they’ve been looking for to help build their families back up.”
