Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Recovery Homes: Building Sobriety Through Housing with Jim Boad
The journey from addiction to lasting recovery rarely follows a straight line. While treatment programs provide essential first steps, what happens afterward can determine long-term success. In this eye-opening conversation, Jim Boad reveals how he's revolutionizing addiction recovery through structured, supportive housing environments that bridge the crucial gap between intensive treatment and independent living.
With remarkable transparency, Boad shares how the pandemic's disruption to his traditional rental property business led him to discover an unexpected calling. When faced with potential financial ruin, he pivoted toward recovery housing—creating environments where people who've completed initial treatment programs can rebuild their lives within a supportive community. What began as financial necessity quickly evolved into a mission that's changed countless lives.
Boad debunks common misconceptions about recovery housing, explaining how these homes operate without requiring specialized licensing while still maintaining accountability through daily check-ins and random drug testing. He walks us through the practical aspects of the model, from resident selection processes to the protective legal framework provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which classifies addiction as a disease.
The financial sustainability of recovery housing creates a rare win-win-win scenario: residents gain affordable, supportive living environments; property owners receive premium rents with minimal management headaches; and operators build purpose-driven businesses. Boad's work through Group Home Accelerator now focuses on empowering entrepreneurs to replicate this model, with the ambitious goal of helping 1,000 people create housing that transforms lives.
Perhaps most compelling are the stories of transformation. When Bode describes a former resident who, after a year in recovery housing, rebuilt an engine, reconnected with family he hadn't seen in 20 years, and achieved his longest period of sobriety since age 14, the profound impact of this work becomes undeniable.
Ready to explore how recovery housing might fit into your investment portfolio or social impact goals? Visit grouphomeaccelerator.com to learn about Jim's programs, or find his guidebook on Amazon to take your first steps toward creating spaces where recovery can flourish.
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today we've got a special guest, and the guy's name is Jim Bode, and we live in a world that is plagued by addiction and substance abuse of all kinds, and even action abuse, all sorts of things. We're just living in a messed up world and I have yet to run upon somebody who is working on this field, so I'm kind of interested to learn about this. Jim's a founder of Group Home Accelerator, where he teaches entrepreneurs how to open and grow recovery in group homes. He's opened 14 homes in just two years and he's on a mission to help 1,000 people create housing that changes lives.
Speaker 1:Now, this is a bit of a controversial subject, as many subjects are. I know that there's all kinds of I don't even know what exactly there's. Probably you're going to explain a lot to me. I'll probably learn more in this show than many shows I've done, but there's all kinds of homes when it comes to halfway houses and recovery homes and centers, all sorts of things. Jim, before we get going, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you here?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Super excited to be show. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you here? Absolutely Super excited to be here. Yeah, my recovery home path has been kind of a fun one. I've actually been running them for about three years now, Started out as just a real estate investor with fix and flips and then rentals and just I'm going to really condense quite a few years into a short time frame there. But you know, when COVID hit, it really changed my whole rental perspective because I pretty much thought I was about to lose everything because people didn't pay their rent.
Speaker 2:Right, I get you Absolutely, and so that really pushed me to have to find a different path with that. And I didn't really know much about recovery housing, but I knew I've always kind of wanted to help and drug addiction has been a pretty big part of my life. I grew up with family members and parents that were drug addicts. So I've seen it. I haven't lived it personally, but I saw it through my family and a lot of friends and, like I said, I was looking for a different path.
Speaker 2:And June, scrolling online one night just trying to get my mind off of all of my failing rentals, I found somebody talking about three poems, okay, and I jumped in and a lot of what he was talking about were more of elderly care, which just wasn't really a passion for me. But then when he started talking about the sober living type homes, it really struck a chord. And as I started getting deeper into it, I know I had the same fears I think most people do. Well, I'm not licensed to do that. You know you have to be in certain zoned areas and I just I don't have the qualifications or skills to do it, and what I learned was that you really don't need any of those things. I run only on licensed homes and and that's kind of what really got me going down this path.
Speaker 1:So tell me a little bit about this world of I don't know addiction therapy centers, if you will. I know that, like I was talking about, there's all different categories of things and you know some of these. You know exclusive resorts that movie stars go to when they get caught up and they're like living in a resort, and then others are, you know, court ordered, like a psych facility, and then there's halfway houses and there's all these different categories of things and it comes. Like you know, addiction is a rough thing. I was very fortunate. It comes. Like you know, addiction is a rough thing. I was very fortunate. I battled a little bit of addiction early in my life but I was able to manage it in my own house and didn't have to seek outside help. But I consider myself very fortunate. I know most people many people at least don't find themselves in that situation.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about that world. Yes, like you were saying, there are many different levels and types of these addiction centers and mainly where I fit in is I fit in after they've actually had the treatments that they get. Okay, that's what keeps me unlicensed is really. All I provide is housing. I give a nice, sober environment with good structured rules, but we do have checks and balances. I do have staff that goes in and checks on the homes. We do random drug testing and we will remove people from the homes if they can't pass the drug test. We have a process for it. It's not one strike and you're completely out, but we do get them out of the house almost immediately and then, if they can be clean in two weeks, we will hold their spot for them for a fee.
Speaker 1:So do you have a staff member that lives on site or they just come and visit?
Speaker 2:I have staff members that do not live on site. They come around and do daily checkups, Okay, but the model can be run where you can have someone who lives in the home actually be that person for you. So if you're just starting out in these, you're probably going to do it yourself. If you've got multiple homes like if you're an investor who's just switching a full of your rental properties to this then you're probably going to want to hire staff right away.
Speaker 1:Sure. So it sounds like what I'm gathering and what I know about rental properties and properties in general just you know about rental properties and properties in general. It sounds like you sort of fit outside of a category that requires a lot of oversight and you're basically offering a safe place for somebody that wants to recover and you're not dealing with people that are being ordered to do a thing or still actively engaged in a program or something like that.
Speaker 2:Correct. We need people when they come into our homes. They have to be sober, they have to have already went through some level of program or at least been sober for 30 days.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that makes some sense. It lowers the risk level on your side, I would imagine, substantially. I know even good people do really terrible things under the spell of substances and it doesn't matter who you are. It can get to you real bad and I've seen and experienced so many just terrible things when involving this. What about your staff things when involving this? What about your staff? Like I'm assuming you do background checks and you know you want to make sure you've got some solid people.
Speaker 2:You're looking for some kind of a particular background or you know. Not specifically, but what has happened is the majority of my staff come. I have a female who runs all of my operations and she comes from the elderly care world. So she did basically the same thing she's doing now, but she just did it for elderly care homes, and then I have my main guy. I'm down to just one person because I've got one guy doing more now than him. I used to have two part-time guys, but now I just went to one full. He actually comes from. You know, his background isn't great, but it's perfect for what we're doing.
Speaker 2:He had a drug addiction and he actually got clean and he opened his own home up to being one of these sober living homes. He's been a valuable asset to me since the beginning of this, because he lived in his first sober living home.
Speaker 1:He ended up having two of them and then, once he started working with me, actually sold both of his homes and now, now he doesn't have any, he just helps run mine well, it sounds like being a little open-minded about that can be helpful because, really, the people that have the most to offer, the people that have been through the problem and, uh, you know, when you go through a struggle, you're given a gift of empathy and you can identify with somebody. You know, when somebody is going through a problem like that, the first you know defensive position is you don't understand what I'm going through, you don't know what I'm dealing with. And when you can come back and say, no, actually I really do. That's a whole different conversation. It is indeed so. That sounds. That sounds very positive. Well, let's talk about the history. You opened up one home out of one of your rental properties. It says you've opened up 14 homes in the past two years. Were they all your properties or were these other people's as well?
Speaker 2:It was a mix, and it's one of the things that I really help people do as well is you can get into this and not actually even have to own a home. You can rent. It's just, of course. You need to be honest and upfront with what you're doing. You don't want to get into a rental acting like you're going to be the person living there and then turn it into a sober living home. You're going to get in trouble, but you can build great relationships and ultimately, most of the people that I've helped get into a rental work with an investor and that investor either has more properties or will actually buy more properties once they see how well this model works. When you run the model, right.
Speaker 1:it's an amazing model. So you find somebody that is interested in the project, whether or not they have a property, and then you can help match them with somebody that either has a property or can help acquire a property, so that they can begin their dream Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Because you know most landlords. What they want to do is they want to buy a house, throw it over to a leasing agent and collect checks. Right, who wouldn't want that? Lyn ALDEN Exactly. It's a great model. There are certain landlords that would want to take this on themselves, but the majority of people out there aren't and don't. It's a great connection when you can get a good investor with a good person who wants to operate these homes.
Speaker 1:I know some about. You know zoning and properties and this, and that I know that you know if you're in an R1 neighborhood, there's certain things you can do in an R2 and all these different types of zoning that there are. My assumption is you don't have one house for one person to be living there, so how do you work that out? What kind of tenancy rate do you have for each house?
Speaker 2:well, there have been some pretty good trailblazers on this. Oxford house is a structured, sober living home and they have had some really big uh state and federal case law that set precedence with this, because addiction is classified as a disease, so it actually falls under ADA, so you can do these almost anywhere. I don't recommend that people go into HOAs and do it just because you can, because the reality is is like they can't discriminate against this and they will get in trouble. But it's just. It's just a fight that you don't really need to take on. There's enough properties that aren't in HOAs.
Speaker 2:So, cities come in. I've got a guy I work with out of Texas where the city came to him. He had a fourplex and he's running one of these and they told him your building isn't zoned for this. I sent him a bunch of the case law. About two weeks later he got a really nice letter saying we're very sorry, we were incorrect.
Speaker 1:Good luck on your venture. So that makes sense. The city's trying to keep their zoning in check so they don't have an influx of complaints from the people around the thing that's doing the thing they said they weren't going to do, and if they're on good ground they don't care one way or the other who's in the building, as long as they don't have to deal with a bunch of complaints. Correct, so that makes some good sense. So back to my question how many people, I guess. Is there a ratio of square footage to the house or rooms? I mean, is it a bunkhouse like an old old school orphanage, or how do you work it?
Speaker 2:People to bathroom ratio is kind of one of the big ones, Okay, so you know. So everybody's got a little bit different, but I believe where I'm at, I think we can do four people per bathroom. Okay, so I could put eight people in a two-bathroom house. Now you know, you want enough bedrooms for it as well. The way I run mine is I do do two people per room because it makes the most sense. Also, it helps in this situation too, because then no one's ever just bunkering away in their own room, potentially doing bad things, hiding stuff or doing things. You're in there with a little bit more of accountability. This is the first step on your path back. It's not the end.
Speaker 1:Step Right right, it's a lifetime yeah.
Speaker 2:And then because I do have houses where I'll move people into solo rooms as they progress kind of down, because it's still affordable housing as well. So it's really hard to get out there and you can't even rent an apartment in my area. For what you can get one of the rooms for.
Speaker 1:I can imagine it's like that. So you're in Texas, right, I'm actually out of Washington State. Oh, washington State, I don't know why. I thought you were in Central Time. Okay, so whereabouts are you Northern? Where are you I?
Speaker 2:am on the west kind of northern side. I'm right by Olympia, the state capital.
Speaker 1:Okay, All right. So there's no shortage of addiction up in that neck of the woods. There is not. I know plenty of people up in Oregon and Washington and there's a lot of chaos and mayhem up there over those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:It's everywhere. I mean, I don't go anywhere. That's really untouched.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I'm in Southern California, so it's everywhere. Yeah yeah, we got it on every street corner, everywhere you go. So, like what I've discovered, with a lot of things that are helping people, there's always double edged swords to things. So, for example, you know, doubling people up, it sounds like on some levels it would be a really good idea, because you're kind of holding people, keeping an eye on things without it being obtrusive, but you also are dealing with potentially sensitive people that don't know each other. And do you ever have issues where you know people just like you know, in any situation, where people bunk together in a dorm of any kind and all of a sudden you're like, whoa this? But it seems like there's a potential for volatility, with people in sort of a potentially compromised state yes, you know it happens.
Speaker 2:We don't have it a lot. But we, what we do is we, we have the ability to ship people around quite a bit because we have a lot of we. What we do is we, we have the ability to ship people around quite a bit because we have a lot of space. It'd be one thing if it was just one house and there were four bedrooms and they're all full. Then you're trying to like get other people to move where you know there's always some kind of turn. I mean no one's ever at a full 100 capacity 100.
Speaker 1:That's what I was going to get to next. So you don generally operate, you know, with people bulging out the window. You've always got a little wiggle room.
Speaker 2:We do. We have a waiting list most of the time, but there's still a little bit of breaks in there. It's like we have four people in the house same house because normally if drugs or alcohol enter a home it kind of spreads through that home very quickly.
Speaker 1:So we did have to let four people get out of our houses, but within the week we had those four people back in the house, okay, so so how does somebody qualify, you know, like if say, somebody hears about this home, they've gotten through their program, they know about it, they got through their 30 days sobriety. Um, you know what do they have to do? To to, to even apply or qualify.
Speaker 2:The majority of our people are coming directly out of some sort of inpatient drug clinic and we have great relationships with them. It's one of the things I show people how to do to build those relationships. So we normally know they're coming before they're even done with their program. Okay, and then we do do interviews and we run them through a process because you know, just kind of seeing where they're at in life, and we've got a set of questions that we go through and the process is the same, even if they're not coming from a drug planning, if they're coming straight off the street well, not off the street, but like we have had people that, like I'm an alcoholic, I off the street. But like we have had people that, like I'm an alcoholic, I'm having a really hard time living where I'm living. I can't get away from it because all of my roommates drink, so they want to be in that sober environment. We run them just through the same process okay.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to this, I mean, it doesn't sound like you're signing long-term leases um, how do you operate that way? It's not a hotel day-to-day, but what? How do you do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything is pretty much. The nice thing about these is that they're never really in a lease. They're coming into a program so they're never really legally a tenant, which is one of the nice things where it gives us a little bit more teeth to remove people that are doing bad things, so they don't establish residency in your place.
Speaker 1:No, no, they don't Got it.
Speaker 2:Helps you a lot, yeah, yeah. So that helps a lot with being able to get the bad characters out, because you have to, because if we can't, then it will just turn into drug houses then at that point.
Speaker 2:Exactly yeah, but we let people stay. I've had people with me because I'm a little over three years now, so we've had people with us for a full three years. We have some people that have come in and they've been there for two to four weeks and just it moved on. Um, but it's it's. You know, 90 days is kind of the minimum really for people to see really lasting change in this, and the longer they're with us, the more it seems like it's worked, because, uh, any anybody who's been with us a year really has gone out and done some pretty amazing stuff, you know. They've gotten into good jobs, they've gotten themselves vehicles, and now I've got a girlfriend that I'm going to move in with.
Speaker 1:Sounds like that foundational support that's hard to establish when you don't have a bunch of resources. So are there any programs that assist these guys in paying for their rent, or does this all come separate?
Speaker 2:Lots. There is lots and lots of programs out there right now state and federally funded. Almost everybody that comes to us about 90% of the people that come to us come to us for funding and then, if they're in and they're working the program, we have lots of different funding that we can push them to that they can apply for. We've had people that have stayed. I've got one guy that's been with us for over two years and he's been funded the whole time and then even when their funding runs out, we have we have a. It's like I said, there's kind of move ups. So I have whole homes with people that are just self paying for themselves and they're in a really good place because now they're paying their own rents and they're moving their own lives forward.
Speaker 1:It's pretty amazing to see. Well, that's great. So are you operating as a nonprofit or is this? How do you operate this program?
Speaker 2:I do have both. I run as a for-profit and a nonprofit and my nonprofit is just starting to raise money and do scholarships and things for people. So people come in and their funding runs out. You know, the last thing we want to do is tell somebody you got to move because you can't pay and you're not fully recovered?
Speaker 1:yes, so, but you're able to receive funds from non-profits as a for-profit correct. All right, awesome. I like to hear that. So um, so when did you go? Like? How many did you do for yourself before you started helping the first guy set up his?
Speaker 2:um, so you know my 14. It has kind of changed a little bit because I I started kind of switching properties out, so, like when I was starting with rentals, I liked little rentals as well too, because they were cheap and I could get a different thing. So I could do, you know, two ones and two twos. So what I've done is I've been kind of moving all of those off and moving into less properties but with more beds. I like to have four to five bedrooms minimum in my homes, you know, and I've got some houses coming up and I'm about to finish that are 10 bedroom homes, so so that's, that's kind of the flow of that.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to helping somebody else set up their their first one, so I mean, that's this business that you have is helping other people get started.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because you know it's the things we don't know we're always the hardest things to do. It's teaching people that there's just a lot, it's just the little things. It's it's picking that niche, you know, because within the group homes there's all of the different styles of group homes. You can have elderly care, kids phasing out of the foster care system. You can just do affordable housing. You can do, you know, sober living. You can do re-entry, which is people coming out of prison. So there's a lot of different ones.
Speaker 2:And you know, I've had some people that went out there and they wanted to just blast out and try to do it all and then you kind of get nothing because one guy wasn't telling me he was doing that. But as we dug into it I'm like so what are they saying to you? And he showed me some of the emails he was getting back from some of the invasion drug clinics and like you don't understand what a sober living home is, and then understand what a sober living home is right. Then I started auditing his stuff a little bit more and I'm like bud, this is the problem you're sending on your website. You say you help veterans, you help elderly, you help this. Like this isn't what they want. You have to have a sober living home and that's all that can be in there. You can't own legal and once he shifted that, he started having much more success and people started sending him people to his house.
Speaker 1:So so do you hire yourself as a service or and and charge for consulting, or do you partner with people, or how does it actually?
Speaker 2:work well for the coaching aspect of it. What I've done is I've got a book out. It's on amazon, just group home accelerator, so that's the basic blueprint of it. You know you could read that and you could pretty much be able to figure it out and do it all. It's just not as detailed with the scripts and the hand holding. And then I've got just a free recorded one where you can just get that and you can just kind of watch and learn all of the things that I'll teach you through there. Or we have the live coaching that I do a script coaching, and that's where we get into it, where we'll do phone calls together and script and you can listen to me, talk to somebody and do it, or I can listen to you and then we can go over it and say, hey, here's how you can improve that. Talking with landlords and one of the big things that really helped too is like I talk to a lot of landlords for people because they ask why should I do this, you, why should I do this?
Speaker 1:You know the language An investor.
Speaker 2:This is why you should do it, because you can get a premium rent. You've got way less to worry about. They're going to deal with all the repairs and everything on the home. Basically, I rent from other investors as well, because it just makes sense. It'll help me really even better, but I take care of everything. I basically do like a triple net lease. I pay for everything. I basically do like a triple net lease I pay for everything and I take care of everything. They just do what they want. They get to collect a check every month and not have to think about their house. Okay.
Speaker 1:All right. So you're pretty versatile in what you're offering and you'll probably refine it as you're going. You're only a few years into it, so you're sharpening your point as you're going along as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, getting close to the four well, yeah, getting close to the four. So I love it, I love it. So I know that. You know I hear stories on the news. I hear, you know, even just local thing, not where I live, so much but you know people that live in fancy neighborhoods. They, you know, all of a sudden one of these homes pops up in the neighborhood and whether it's an HOA or not, I don't know, you know, I know if it is an HOA they get a lot more loud and cantankerous pretty quickly. Southern California we have a lot of them, but I don't know the details, but I do know from time to time you hear the, you know the squawking about these homes popping up in the neighborhood and now people are wandering around the streets of dark and causing trouble, loitering around and doing, you know, just causing perceived, I don't know whatever. You know that people like to have a problem with things. Um, how often does that pop up?
Speaker 2:For us not very often, because we have curfews. We're really high touch. I think where a lot of these places get into trouble is somebody who thinks that, hey, I can just jam 10 people into this home, make $7,000 a month off of this thing and not do any rules so you give them guidelines that will help them be successful and if they follow them, they'll probably be successful.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I like it. Well, I like to. We're getting close to the the bitching moment, but I want to. I always like to hear you know getting close to the bitching moment, but I want to. I always like to hear you know sort of that story. You know, you've been at this for three years. You've been dealing with a lot of people, a lot of homes. Tell me one story that stands out to you as particularly insightful or inspiring.
Speaker 2:Well, my favorite one was one of our first guys that we got in our home. He spent about a year with us. When he came to us he was missing most of his teeth. He was pretty broken down at that point but he didn't really look at you, wouldn't really make eye contact. He had been a role man. I mean he'd call trains. He's got a hell of a hard story and what was really cool was when he hit that year he came to us with a big, bright smile because he got. He had a little toyota pickup truck that he rebuilt the engine on at one of our properties and was so proud of it and he was taken off across the country to go reconnect with his family that he hadn't seen for 20 years. And you know he broke down and like, hey, this is the longest I've been sober, since I was 14 years old and he was almost 40. So it was pretty amazing to see that. That's one of those things that make people like. This is why I do this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, I love that. I love that. Well, this is the point where I like to give you, you know, whatever the parting shot that you want to leave our listeners with and, maybe most importantly, how they can get ahold of you if they're interested in maybe getting into this fascinating field.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, biggest thing I can impart on people is just taking that imperfect action. You got to get out there and just take that first step. Whether it's doing this or whatever that passion is for you to help people or to move your life forward, go make some imperfect action and make some failures, because that's where you're going to get your big growth. And getting a hold of me is pretty easy. Um, you know, facebook, group home accelerator and then just grouphomeacceleratorcom is where you can kind of find about my programs and what I have to offer.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, jim, it's been a pleasure. I've learned a lot and I'm sure our listeners have as well, and, uh, I appreciate you being on the show fantastic well, thank you. I appreciate you you. This has been another edition of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and I appreciate all the listeners who've taken the time to support this show. We will see you next time.
