Hundreds attend statewide rehab forum

NEWPORT BEACH — Huntington Beach officials are not alone in keeping an eye on the issue of drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in residential areas.

That much was clear from the 300 people, including three representatives of Huntington Beach and more than 100 other California cities, who came to a Friday conference in Newport Beach on residential recovery facilities.

Representatives for the city administrator, the city attorney and the city’s Code Enforcement Program were there to observe, said City of Huntington Beach spokeswoman Laurie Payne.

“We went to follow along with what’s going on,” she said. “It’s always good to know what other cities are going through.”

As for the city’s policy toward such centers, Payne said it was constrained by state law, but the city was waiting to see legislation from state Sen. Tom Harman on the issue.

“From a local standpoint, we basically are just waiting to see what he comes up with,” she said. “We have a process; we’re going to take it to our legislative committee and go from there.

It was unclear at the conference how long it will take to come up with new regulations that will satisfy concerned residents and comply with federal fair-housing regulations, which classify addicts — if they’re no longer using — as disabled, giving them the same protections against discrimination.

Though provisions may change throughout the legislative process, a bill proposed by Harman contains two key features: one would prohibit clusters of facilities run by the same operator, though not different operators; another would narrow down the concept of “local need” that cities are expected to serve, possibly excluding patients from other states from that definition.

Drug and alcohol recovery homes have opened around Riverside County, where officials worry there’s too little supervision. Robin Reid, a legislative assistant to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, said she’s heard some facilities give clients medication without a doctor present, and code enforcement officials have found 15 to 20 people living in a facility that was supposed to serve six.

Some advocates for recovering drug addicts worry that cities’ efforts are aimed at limiting recovery programs. Instead, the focus should be on how to meet the need for drug treatment, said Margaret Dooley of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national organization that promotes drug policy reform.

“The message I’m hearing this morning sounds, unfortunately, a lot less like how can we stop discrimination and more about how can we get around the Fair Housing Act,” said Dooley, who also was a panelist at the conference.