 House call: Michael Morgester credits his sobriety to stays in Oxford House group homes like this one, which want strict roles on eviction for using alcohol or drugs.
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Michael Morgester says he got sober in 1994 and credits his nine years in nine different Oxford House group homes in Portland as key to his recovery.
Now program manager for the rehab group Oregon Recovery Homes, Morgester is among several recovering addicts pushing a bill that critics say would strip people who were in Morgester's position 13 years ago of their rights.
The measure drafted by the Oregon Department of Human Services, Senate Bill 154, would exempt group homes like Oxford House, a national nonprofit with about 60 member homes in the Portland area and 150 statewide, from a requirement that a 30-day notice be given for most evictions.
Last June, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled in Burke v. Oxford House that group homes like Oxford must comply with the law when asking a member of the group to leave.
Morgester, now 40, says it's important
that homes like Oxford House be able to immediately expel any member who uses alcohol or drugs.
"It's an agreement that every member enters into when they are voted into a Oxford House, and they understand it up front," Morgester says. "Just by knowing that...kept me from picking up and using that day."
The dispute affects an estimated 7,700 people in the Portland area and 25,600 statewide living in peer-run group homes like Oxford House, or in residential treatment and assisted living facilities for folks with mental illness or physical disabilities.
State Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson (D-Gresham), chair of the Senate Health Policy and Public Affairs Committee, says she understands the need to get rid of somebody who has relapsed. But Monnes Anderson, a public health nurse, says she's concerned that the proposed change could end up hurting the vulnerable population it's designed to protect.
She's not alone. Advocacy groups for tenants and low-income people are working with the state and Oxford House to draft new language. State officials say they're agreeable to a compromise.
"Folks who are evicted from Oxford Houses are evicted almost inevitably into homelessness," says Ian Slingerland, executive director of Community Alliance of Tenants. "We'd like to see some measures put in place, because the stakes are so high, to ensure that when people are removed from houses, it's for a good reason."
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People who don't understand the process need to butt out.
Oxford Homes are usually in nicer neighborhoods. Often the neighbors are frightened at first until they come to understand what the Program is about and that there is zero tolerance for relapsing. These members (whom I truly believe feel like family to each other) are every bit about getting back to a fantastic life and becoming whole again.
If the state were to make a ruling that Oxford had to give an addict 30days notice, I would have to venture that we as property owners would have to consider the option of breaking our leases with Oxford House in order to assure the neighborhood stayed safe at all costs. That would make 20 plus people homeless immediately.
30 days is in outrageous amount of time for an addict. Any one of these program members can tell you what kind of crimes can be committed in that amount of time. How DARE you tell these people, who have already come through so much in their lives, that they have to live in jeopardy for 30 days with a person high on Meth! Many of them have their children living with them! Many of whom would lose their children immediately, if not be told they are breaking parole and end up back in jail themselves just for being around it! How completely heartless of the State to put those people at risk like this! Clearly, the State, at this moment, is incapable of seeing the risks in that situation. Let Oxford govern themselves. They are doing a fabulous job of it.