COLUMN ONE : Paying a Price to Stay Sober : Substandard living conditions, welfare fraud and profiteering abound in some privately run facilities that shelter recovering addicts and alcoholics.

In Los Feliz, as many as 55 recovering drug addicts and alcoholics are living in a single home, some packed 10 to a room, others squeezed into attic crawl spaces or closets.

In South-Central Los Angeles, men struggling to stay off drugs surrender their welfare checks to sleep on plywood pallets in bare cubicles with exposed wiring.

And on a shady street in Van Nuys, women seek shelter in the home of a therapist who has been accused of demanding sexual favors from female tenants.

From Pomona to Manhattan Beach, hundreds of privately run facilities have been opened in the past three years to shelter thousands of addicts graduating from publicly funded drug treatment programs.

Los Angeles County drug officials promote these so-called sober living homes as a low-cost way of helping addicts stay off the streets and off drugs. They award start-up grants and stage workshops to encourage new homes, usually in residential neighborhoods. They use county hot lines, county counselors and county vans to help fill the homes. County welfare checks often pay the rent.

But county drug officials do not inspect or license the homes despite the public investment in their success.

As a result, recovering addicts are subjected to exploitation while substandard living conditions, welfare fraud and profiteering abound.

“A lot of people are getting into this field totally out of greed,” said Vivian Beach-Neely, project director at the California Assn. of Alcoholic Recovery Homes. “They pack people in like a meat house.”

Though some homes are clean and safe, a Times examination of about 50 sober living homes found:

* Operators sometimes maximize revenue by renting beds in dining rooms, garages, camper trailers, even old cars--anywhere a body can fit. They typically charge $300 a month per person.

* The homes are often little more than flophouses. Many do not meet health and safety requirements--and some operators do not have the necessary business license, occupancy permit or health license to rent out rooms. Several houses have neither heat nor lights. Others have defective wiring, rotting floors and leaking roofs. One--formerly a nightclub called Peyton Place--has gaping holes in the ceiling that the owner calls “my skylights.”

To fill their facilities with addicts, some operators pay “finders’ fees” or bonuses for referrals. A Marina del Rey realty agent who owns a South-Central Los Angeles home pays his residents $50 each for every new resident they bring in. A consulting firm charges up to $1,000 to set up a new sober living house and fill it.

* Millions of dollars in inflated welfare payments pour into sober living homes each year. Many residents receive the maximum allowable general relief stipend of $341 a month for an adult living alone. But because these residents share rooms, welfare officials say their expenses are lower and their checks should be reduced to as little as $147 a month.

* Managers wield tremendous power over addicts. Some have allegedly confiscated residents’ welfare checks, endorsed them and taken the money for rent. Residents accuse some managers of stealing their belongings, and of assault, sexual harassment and, in one case, rape.

* Though sober living homes cannot legally provide drug treatment or therapy, some managers require addicts to attend regular therapy sessions and to undergo random urine tests. Others try to modify behavior with arbitrary rules. New residents of one home are confined to quarters for 30 to 60 days. For minor infractions, women in another lose phone privileges for days, even months.

The model for self-help sober living homes is Oxford House, a chain of group homes founded by several Maryland alcoholics in 1975. In the late 1980s, federal officials ordered all states to set up a revolving loan fund to promote similar facilities.

Aided by a $200,000 state fund, sober living homes have spread across California. The growth has been particularly explosive in Los Angeles County, where officials have awarded operators about $600,000 in start-up funds.

Using peer pressure, the homes are designed to provide a drug-free environment to help recovering addicts make the transition between formal treatment programs and a return to society. The residents can stay as long as they remain sober.

Officials say there are now more than 100 homes countywide, and other estimates range as high as 500. But Rochelle Ventura, chief of the county’s Alcohol and Drug Program Administration, said the county does not have nearly enough. “It is the most economical program in the whole county and probably has the best success rate in maintaining sobriety,” she said.

Ventura acknowledged that the quality of sober living homes varies widely and said there is a need for “some sort of quality assurance” to protect addicts from abuses. But she opposes establishing a state or local licensing system because imposing costly bureaucratic requirements could inhibit the growth of these homes.

The homes, usually set up in single-family residences or small apartment houses, operate in a regulatory void between drug treatment centers and private rooming houses. They are subject to basic health and safety, zoning and building regulations, as well as business licensing. They are required to get a health license and undergo annual inspections if more than five people are renting rooms.

But many operators--including a county official who runs three homes in Pomona--appear ignorant of these local restrictions. Roland Marsh, who works as an analyst in the county Alcohol and Drug Treatment Office, is renting one of his houses to as many as 10 recovering addicts. But he said, “To the best of my knowledge, no one has said I need a health license.”

County drug officials who hold workshops to attract new operators fail to point out permit and license requirements. In fact, Ventura’s office has funded at least two sober living homes that violate local health and safety codes.

Despite unresolved building violations, a Pasadena home called Priscilla’s Place received $20,000 in 1991 from the county and $10,000 from the city last month. The building houses more than a dozen women and their children, but it still has no health permit or certificate of occupancy. It is illegal for any people to be living in there, said Joseph Russ, code compliance supervisor for Pasadena.

Herbert Williams, who runs the house, said he has permits but refused to produce them. “We couldn’t open these doors unless anything was approved,” he said. “Why would the county give us money if we were sitting here operating illegally?”

Ventura said she was stunned that Pasadena officials had problems with Priscilla’s Place but added that enforcement of health and building codes is not her office’s responsibility.

As for her employee, Marsh, Ventura said she was “troubled” by the potential for his homes to get referrals from treatment programs he monitors.

The county counsel concluded there was no conflict of interest, but Ventura said she remains concerned about appearances. She once had an opportunity to lease her residence for recovery services, she noted, but decided against it “because it would look so bad.”

Living ‘Like Animals’

Ed Medina says he has been fighting alcoholism since he was 16. His addiction robbed him of family and friends and left him wandering the streets.

The 29-year-old parolee says he managed to complete two treatment programs, only to relapse. After his third try, he was determined to stay sober. He found the Winona House in Los Feliz, thinking it was a drug- and alcohol-free place to live.

Medina, an aspiring musician, found men sleeping 10 to a room and paying $300 a month, including meals. Others were living in closets or the attic, as well as a stifling crawl space with exposed pipes and bare light bulbs.

He stayed more than a year because “I didn’t have any place else to go.” But he said he finally left in September, disgusted by the drug use and crowded conditions.

“They treat you like animals,” he said. “It’s sickening.”

The gable-roofed house with a big front porch was built in the early 1900s as an eight-room residence. Today, it is a 55-bed sober living home run by Millard Walton, who last year was convicted of maintaining properties in slum condition.

Walton said that attic crawl spaces are used as “detoxification rooms” for addicts suffering withdrawal. “They’re for guys who are kind of shaky. . . . They are a little sick.”

Word of mouth brings many of the men to Winona House, said Walton. But the house has also been listed in a county directory of sober living homes distributed to treatment providers.

Walton said he needs only a business license to run his home and said he has complied with all health, building and fire codes.

But health officials said the property does not have a license required whenever more than five people are renting rooms. Last March, Walton was fined $5,400 for multiple health code violations, including deteriorating walls and improper wiring at the Winona House and other properties. Walton said he has made repairs and has a maintenance crew that makes daily rounds.

Although Winona House could gross as much as $16,500 a month in rent when it is full, Walton said there are no profits. “This is a labor of love,” he said. “We sincerely try to offer a nice place to be.”

Welfare Windfall

The 5th is the most important day of the month at many sober living houses. That is the day welfare checks arrive.

But at some houses, residents never see their checks. The checks are received and cashed by the house manager, according to operators and former residents.

When the mail arrived Aug. 5 at Winona House, the letter carrier handed a fistful of welfare checks directly to the manager, who immediately drove them several blocks to Walton’s office for endorsement.

“They . . . take the checks and cash them,” said Medina, the former resident. “They’d sign my name (on the back of the welfare check).”

Walton and other sober living operators who use similar means to get their money said they cannot trust tenants to pay their rent.

“We had to try to do something to get paid,” he said. “A lot of these guys get the check and that’s the last we see of them.”

Before moving in, Winona House residents are told to sign papers authorizing the house management to cash their welfare checks. But according to county welfare spokeswoman Carol Matsui, it is not “proper or legal” to require a welfare recipient “to sign something authorizing somebody else to sign . . . a general relief check.”

Residents in many sober homes are receiving larger welfare payments than they should and the money is being passed on to the operators as rent.

According to interviews, many residents on general relief claim they are eligible for the maximum allowable $341 monthly payment. However, welfare officials say that the maximum payment is intended only for recipients who are not sharing a household. The payments are supposed to be revised downward if recipients are sharing a household or a room, as most sober living residents do.

Based on a sliding scale provided by the county, it appears that many sober living residents should be receiving as little as $147 a month, instead of $341.

“It’s almost impossible to police this situation,” said Matsui.

She said welfare officials rely on recipients and their landlords to disclose in sworn statements whether accommodations are shared.

Complaints of Abuse

Anyone--ex-convicts, recovering addicts, alcoholics--can manage a sober living home because there are no minimum job qualifications. Yet they wield extraordinary power over their houses and their residents.

One resident of a sober living home in Altadena complained to police Sept. 20 that he was beaten, dragged and bound for two hours by the manager during a dispute over property missing from the premises. The manager has been booked on misdemeanor assault charges.

At a sober living home on the fringes of downtown Los Angeles, a homeless mother of three was grateful for shelter until, she complained to police, the manager pulled her into his bedroom and raped her. The case remains under investigation.

Coeducational homes are discouraged by professionals. “Women are extremely vulnerable to the potential for sexual abuse and other types of exploitation,” said Charles Hayes, a state-paid consultant to sober living operators.

State drug treatment officials said they have opened an investigation into allegations against Dana Burgess, the male operator of the all-female Genesis House in Van Nuys, who has been accused of demanding sexual favors from some former residents. Burgess denied the allegations, calling them “malicious rumors.”

Burgess, a former heroin addict, is licensed as a marriage and family counselor and calls himself “Doctor.”

However, state officials said he cannot legally use that title because he is not a licensed psychologist. Burgess disagreed, saying that he can call himself “Doctor” because he has a doctorate in psychology.

Another operator, Lonnie Patrick, has no license and no background in counseling, but that has not stopped him from offering a full range of “rehabilitation services” to the men in South-Central Los Angeles.

Patrick said he kicked a 50-year coke habit and fulfilled a promise to God to open a club for recovering addicts.

With his own tools and hands, he transformed the old Peyton Place dance hall into the Natural High Club. The dance floor where James Brown and the Stylistics once performed is used for group meetings of addicts. The alcoves above were converted into cell-like rooms, some with ragged holes in the ceilings. For $280 a month, men sleep on pallets.

Patrick welcomes his guests with a mandatory 30- to 60-day lock down, barring them from leaving the house, even to look for work. Residents must also submit to random urine testing, even though his facility needs to be licensed as a recovery home to require such tests.

“I got convicted murderers, bank robbers, all sorta bad guys coming here. Sometimes I go down and get them right from the judge,” Patrick said. “I got all kind of potential violent people. We got to be strict.”

There are 37 rules in all, ranging from no drugs or alcohol to “No climbing threw (sic) the roof.” Patrick punishes offenders by banishing them to the streets of South-Central for up to three days at a time. Those ejected from the program are given 72 hours to remove their belongings before Patrick confiscates them.

“If they had some money,” said Patrick, “these people wouldn’t come here, no how.”

Patrick, who has so far escaped scrutiny of state agencies, said Tuesday that he has applied for all necessary licenses for his facility. County assessor’s records still describe his operation on Western Avenue as a restaurant and nightclub.

Another sober living home operator, Cheryl Robinson of San Pedro, has not been so lucky. In 1990, state drug treatment officials ordered her to stop treating addicts without a license.

After residents alleged other abuses at Robinson’s Stepping Point homes, state officials opened a second investigation.

In sworn statements, former residents accused Robinson of confiscating their possessions and, in one case, taking money and food stamps in a rent dispute. There also were complaints about living conditions. “For a period of time we had no heat or blankets or furniture,” said Rebecca Zimmermann, a former resident manager of one home, in a declaration.

Robinson, who still operates homes, denied the allegations and said her accusers are “unstable, angry people.” She said her residences always are comfortably furnished and properly equipped.

Booming Business

The growth of sober living homes has spawned a cottage industry of consultants who help operators set up homes, get public money and other financing, and fill them with addicts.

“It . . . has just taken off,” said Christina Alaua, who set up a consulting firm in her home this year. “These homes are popping up like crazy because (drug treatment programs) are discharging people with no place to go.”

Calls are coming in from elderly homeowners who want to make some extra money and from people who have bought or inherited property and want to rent it out, according to Alaua and others.

Some are inspired by success stories such as the Tri-Care sober living network and its owner, Thomas Pyle. The Los Angeles real estate investor has turned four of his properties in the West Adams area into homes that, according to his glossy brochure, offer a “quality, clean and sober tranquil living environment.”

Tri-Care’s 140 beds, including at least one in a camper trailer, rent for $300 to $350 a month. Managers Charles Byrd and Michael Parker, a pair of recovering addicts, also have their own consulting firm.

In the last year, their firm has helped about a dozen entrepreneurs launch sober living homes for fees ranging from $500 to $1,000.

Gerald Thompson, who runs a chain of sober living homes called Building on Sobriety, charges other homes a fee to be listed on his private hot line that homeless addicts can call for shelter.

The best source of addicts, managers agree, are county and state agencies that are looking to house parolees, probationers, and graduates of drug and alcohol programs.

“I’ve had tons of sober living flyers cross my desk,” said Curtis McClendon, a consultant to the county Probation Department.

Probation officers are increasingly referring recovering addicts to sober living homes, he said, but there is no formal department procedure for screening or recommending them.

At the county’s Acton Rehabilitation Center, a 300-bed treatment program in the Antelope Valley, counselors send the vast majority of graduates to sober living homes, including some they never have visited. Sometimes county vans deliver them, said counselor Diane Burkholder.

Many addicts have been referred to the Sobriety Foundation, a chain of sober living homes accused of illegally operating a home in Manhattan Beach.

City officials ordered the home in the 1700 block of Nelson Avenue closed after neighbors complained that it was occupied by 20 people in violation of zoning ordinances restricting the area to single-family dwellings.

James Sherk, a TWA airline captain who runs the Sobriety Foundation, said he has no plans to remove the residents. “Our position is that we have a family here--people with a common interest and (there’s) no legal limit to the size of our family,” he said.

Tomorrow: Addicts and their stories, in View.