No money exchanged in agreement that closes sober-living homes, Costa Mesa spokesman says

Solid Landings Behavioral Health, a Costa Mesa-based drug and alcohol addiction recovery company that agreed this week to close its live-in sober-living facilities in the city, said in a statement Wednesday that the closures are within the company’s long-term objectives.

“Upon analysis and thoughtful deliberation, we believe that this agreement supports our future strategic plan ... that will help us realize our vision and meet our goals as the top provider of care in this industry,” Steve Fennelly, Solid Landings’ CEO and president, said in a statement.

Fennelly said the move supports its “long-term and transformative plan that will shift our treatment services to a more efficient and centralized delivery model, one that will allow us to focus on standardizing and maintaining quality care.”

The statement followed Tuesday’s announcement that, per an agreement with City Hall, Solid Landings will close 33 of its sober-living homes in town within three years; 15 of them will close immediately.

The company also agreed to drop two lawsuits that challenged City Hall’s efforts to regulate the rehabilitation industry.

A copy of the agreement, which city officials have called a “landmark” achievement, was not immediately available for review Wednesday.

City spokesman Tony Dodero said the Solid Landings agreement involved no exchange of money.

“We didn’t pay them one penny,” he said. “They didn’t pay us one penny.”

Dodero added that Solid Landings appears to be shifting away from providing sober-living services for recovering addicts in residential settings.

Solid Landings will continue to operate two counseling facilities in Costa Mesa, but they will be relocated to commercial and industrial areas, Dodero said.

Fennelly said it remains “resolute and committed to doing what we’ve set out to accomplish from the start, and that is to help men and women achieve sustainable sobriety to become productive and responsible citizens in their communities.”

Tuesday’s news was met with skepticism from Take Back Our Neighborhoods, an informal activist group that has battled both City Hall and the sober-living industry in recent years.

Costa Mesa resident Anne Parker, TBON’s spokeswoman, said while the Solid Landings closures appear to be a good thing, hundreds of other homes seem to be staying put.

“It’s not like sober living is leaving town,” she said Wednesday.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer, who negotiated with Solid Landings on behalf of the city, said the industry’s new business model appears to be moving away from bringing clients into urban centers like Costa Mesa and more toward rural areas where all treatment services are centralized in the same location — 50 people on a farm, for example.

Based on the Solid Landings agreement, which he called “a landmark, watershed moment” for Costa Mesa, he expects more operators to leave.

Parker said Righeimer shouldn’t receive all the credit. Residents also want such facilities out, she said.

“I don’t mean to be hostile to kids trying to get better,” Parker said, “but this problem is getting out of control” in Costa Mesa.

Parker led an appeal to prevent Solid Landings from hosting group counseling sessions at an office building on West 19th Street. Solid Landings eventually lost the case at City Hall and took the matter to Orange County Superior Court. It is one of the two lawsuits the company agreed to drop.

Costa Mesa contains some 300 sober-living facilities and group homes, according to recent estimates. About half of those are believed to be related to the drug and alcohol rehabilitation industry. The remainder are other types of group homes, some of which house senior citizens, Dodero said.

TBON launched a service this week at TBONCostaMesa.org intended to help residents address the ill effects of the rehab industry in their neighborhoods, Parker said.

“Our goal is to develop awareness and proactivity to protect our neighborhoods from being overtaken and negatively impacted by unlicensed, unmonitored, nuisance group residential properties,” the website states.

Dodero said Costa Mesa residents should be aware of the time, legal resources and money City Hall has spent addressing sober-living homes, which are not just a Costa Mesa problem but are problematic throughout Orange County and the rest of the country, he said.

Cities from Delray Beach, Fla., to San Juan Capistrano look to Costa Mesa for guidance on the issue, Dodero said.

“The truth is, we are doing a lot,” he said. “We have code enforcement on a daily basis overseeing this stuff. We have police and fire working together on this issue and providing us with information that we can use for enforcement efforts.”