March 8- Land Use
Sober Living Facilities

**FREE FOR IMLA MEMBERS! Only Kitchen Sink Subscribers can obtain CLE credit.

There has been a great deal of litigation concerning the effect of federal fair-housing and disability laws on the ability of local governments to exercise control over business-run group-living arrangements, particularly for persons with disabilities. In this context, Congress has extended “disability” to include recovering from drug or alcohol addiction.

These federal protections for the disabled forbid discriminatory housing practices involving recovering addicts. Recovering addicts are often more successful if they can transition back into the broader community by living for a time with other people in recovery in a “typical” residential environment. Predictably, this sometimes leads to conflict with more permanent members of the community.

So what do you do when you have complaining neighbors, concerned public-safety officers, and outraged city council members?

This presentation will discuss the legal characteristics of sober-living homes and their relationship with federal disability and fair-housing law. In particular, it will cover how the FHAA is used by owners of sober-living homes to operate their facilities and how local governments can balance the interests of the operators, occupants, and neighbors.

Speaker: Todd Leishman & Jeff Ballinger

Click here to view the speaker’s bios.