SSA Vendor Letter.pdf

May 6, 2026

Re: Oxford House, Inc. Sole Source Justification Information

Oxford House, Inc. [OHI] is the sole provider of services for adult males and females of recovery homes for those recovering from substance use disorders in many states. Oxford House, Inc. has maintained the privilege of providing this service to citizens as a sole provider for over 50 years.

Oxford House, Inc. intends to continue providing technical assistance to the Oxford Houses and residents in Idaho. The information below explains in detail the importance of ensuring the integrity and successful support of Oxford Houses within the state.

Background:

The mission of Oxford House, Inc. has remained unchanged from its birth over 50 years ago – namely, replication of enough Oxford Houses to provide individuals in recovery from substance use disorders the opportunity to live in a time-tested environment designed to learn sober behavior sufficiently to avoid the recurrence of using substances.

Oxford House was founded in 1975 when Montgomery County, Maryland, closed one of its four halfway houses for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, and the 13 men living there rented the building and agreed to run and financially support the enterprise on their own democratically. The Oxford House Manual©, downloadable from the website: www.oxfordhouse.org, was written within weeks of founding the first house. It has provided the blueprint for replicating the successful Oxford House model that started over 50 years ago in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Following the lead of Alcoholics Anonymous, the early residents of Oxford House developed a self-help system of operation that was focused exclusively on maintaining total abstinence from the use of alcohol and/or addictive drugs. The founders of Oxford House kept the mechanism of expansion simple. Once a house was full and the demand for residence exceeded the supply of beds, the group rented another house. Within four months of establishing the first house in Silver Spring, Maryland, the men had rented a second house in Northwest Washington, DC. The two houses then rented a third house, and by 1988, without any outside funding whatsoever, there were 13 Oxford Houses in the Washington, DC metropolitan area – 10 for men and 3 for women.

Although Oxford House started in response to the closure of a halfway house, Oxford Houses always have had three characteristics that distinguish them from traditional halfway houses, and those are:

1. Oxford Houses are democratically self-run rather than employing a manager;

2. Oxford Houses are financially self-supported by the residents rather than taxpayers, insurers, or other outsiders; and

3. Individuals can live in an Oxford House as long as they want, provided they do not drink alcohol or use drugs and pay their equal share of household expenses1.

1 Nationally, the equal share of household expenses averages about $150 a week with a range of $75 to $250.

501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation Telephone (301) 587-2916 • Facsimile (301) 589-0302 www.oxfordhouse.org http://www.oxfordhouse.org/

All three of these unique characteristics work together to make Oxford Houses both economical to replicate and effective in providing individuals in recovery from substance use disorders with a realistic opportunity to master sobriety without relapse. The recovering individuals living together as a group rent – rather than own – the house they live in and follow a standard democratic system for operating the home themselves rather than relying upon paid professionals or outside managers. This Oxford House concept enables individuals to live in the recovery home for as long as they want. This latter characteristic recognizes that each individual recovering from addiction becomes comfortable in total abstinence at a different pace. The length of stay in an Oxford House can be open-ended because renting another house can expand capacity forever.

The Structure:

Oxford House, Inc. is the umbrella organization for all the Oxford Houses, and the Oxford House Manual© spells out the basic organization for each Oxford House. There are Oxford Houses for men, Oxford Houses for women, and some Oxford Houses for women that accept women with children and men that accept men with children. There are no co-ed houses. As outlined in the manual, each group of six or more recovering individuals who want to establish an Oxford House receives a charter from Oxford House, Inc. Oxford House, Inc. has sole authority to issue charters to start new houses, and it has the sole authority to revoke a charter when a group does not comply with the following three charter conditions:2

• The group must be democratically run,

• The group must be financially self-supporting, and

• The group must immediately expel any resident who returns to using alcohol and/or drugs.

In addition to providing charters, Oxford House, Inc. maintains a central services office, Oxford House, Inc., in Silver Spring, Maryland, just a block away from the original Oxford House started in 1975. Oxford House, Inc., maintains revolving loan funds for a number of states to provide $4,000 loans repayable in 24 months to groups of six or more recovering individuals who want to start an Oxford House. As part of that process, the office makes certain that a group anywhere in the country is legitimate and that it has a suitable house to rent. It does this by requiring an application to be signed by four recovering individuals and then uses either our paid outreach worker or a local member of a mutual aid group such as AA or NA or a treatment provider or drug court judge to verify the bona fide of the group applying. At this time the office also reviews the lease and if warranted issues a conditional charter and start-up kit to the group requesting it. The start-up kit contains forms for the new group to get its own FEIN and checking account, the Oxford House Manual©, the Oxford House Chapter Manual©, and other material to help the men or women understand the democratic system of operation.

Once a new house is established, Oxford House, Inc. keeps contact with the group and helps it meet the conditions needed for issuance of a permanent charter. At all times, the group has a toll-free inquiry line available so that a central office employee can walk them through any problems

2 Since we began chartering in 1976 only two houses have had to have their charters revoked. There are few problems but when they occur Oxford House World Services – the central maintained by Oxford House, Inc. – is able to take corrective action and get a house back on track.

they have in organizing the new house. When several houses have been started in a geographic area, the Central Services Office encourages them to form a mutually supportive chapter.

As part of its activity, Oxford House, Inc. helps local and state networks of houses hold workshops to educate all residents about the duties and responsibilities of house officers, including the form and parliamentary procedures to be used for the weekly house meeting. All substantive matters, from fire safety to detecting a resident’s relapse, are covered in local or state workshops. An indirect benefit is the expansion of sober socialization among all the recovering residents. In effect, all residents of Oxford Houses become members of a surrogate family focused on the common bonds of past addiction and the common goal of sobriety without relapse.

Justification:

Oxford House, Inc. is responsible for the recruitment, training, and supervision of outreach workers hired from the large pool of residents or former residents that is central to Oxford House, Inc.'s operations. Experience in expanding the small network of 13 Oxford Houses into a national network of more than 4,300 Oxford Houses has shown two things: [1] the networks are formed by establishing one house at a time, and [2] sound systems of operations are necessary to preserve democratic procedures and adherence to sobriety at all levels of the organization. In more than 28 states, Oxford House Inc. has employed, supervised, and directed outreach workers to establish the initial houses in the states by executing contracts with state government or local funding sources.3Moreover, Oxford House traditions, democratic procedures, processes, and structures are part of the Oxford House success story. Oxford House, Inc. acts as the flywheel to synchronize these various structures and processes.

The role of Oxford House, Inc. is far from limited to the nuts and bolts of establishing and maintaining networks of individual Oxford Houses. Legal and social barriers would thwart Oxford House's development if it were not for the knowledge and willingness of Oxford House, Inc. to aggressively defend the civil rights of recovering individuals living together in an environment of sobriety without relapse. Oxford House, Inc. deals with any discrimination by first trying to educate those who are discriminating about the existing laws against discrimination. If reason and logic do not prevail, the organization seeks injunctions or other relief from the federal courts.

Finally, the board from the outset has been aware that research about what works to enable alcoholics and drug addicts to successfully change behavior to assure sobriety without relapse is important. Honest, complete knowledge of facts surrounding addiction is essential for demonstrating what works and what does not work. Consequently, Oxford House, Inc. has built into its culture willingness among residents to complete periodic surveys and to cooperate with researchers in the field of substance abuse and behavior change.

In Summary:

► Oxford House, Inc. has developed a distributed system of operations that has been tested and honed throughout the years since the first Oxford House opened in 1975. The 50-year-old system is now used successfully in 4,300+ houses in 827 towns/cities in 47 states.

► Oxford House, Inc. has developed and implemented a strong management system of more than 250 Oxford House Outreach Workers in the field. This includes Regional Managers who travel to states to train local Outreach Workers one-on-one, oversight of those Outreach Workers on several levels, intensive training on reporting requirements, including data collection, which is then submitted monthly to state agencies, and an annual Outreach Training Program, which NAADAC has approved for CEU hours.

► Oxford House, Inc. has specifically designed, developed, and implemented a very intricate monthly data collection system, a real-time vacancy system, and an annual survey taken by resident members, which provides extensive data regarding the following:

a. The monthly data includes:

I. Number of beds available per house II. Number of beds filled per house

III. Number of male beds available per house IV. Number of male beds filled per house V. Number of female beds available per house

VI. Number of female beds filled per house VII. Number of children beds available per house

VIII. Number of children beds filled per house IX. Number of applications submitted X. Number of residents admitted

XI. Number of relapses/expelled XII. Number of voluntary departures

XIII. Number of other departures

b. Maintain a current listing of the Oxford House and Recovery Homes that includes, but is not limited to, the following information:

I. Address/Location II. Date the house was established

III. House telephone number IV. Number of beds V. Gender designation

VI. Information related to the capability of the house to accommodate children

VII. Information related to the capability of the house to accommodate residents with mental illness

VIII. Information related to the capability of the house to accommodate residents with physical disabilities

► Oxford House has been recognized in SAMHSA’s 2023 publication, Best Practices for Recovery Housing, as a distinct and established peer-run recovery housing model. The Oxford House Model™ is also supported by decades of independent research demonstrating positive outcomes related to sustained recovery, employment, reduced criminal justice involvement, and long-term housing stability.

► The U.S. Surgeon General’s landmark report [Nov. 2016] on Alcohol, Drugs and Health entitled Facing Addiction in America, singles out Oxford House™ as an effective tool for resolving the serious health issue the country faces. He states:

A leading example of recovery-supportive houses is Oxford Houses, which are peer-run, self-sustaining, maintain abstinence.3 … A randomized controlled trial found that people with severe substance use disorders who were randomly assigned to live in an Oxford House after substance use disorder treatment were two times more likely to be abstinent and had higher monthly incomes and lower incarceration rates at follow-up 2 years later than similar individuals assigned to receive standard continuing care.

Despite high intervention costs, the net cost benefit to the health care and criminal justice systems from the Oxford House assignment relative to standard care was estimated at approximately $29,000 per person over the 2-year follow-up period.4

Dr. Vivek Murthy is the first Surgeon General to issue a comprehensive report about alcoholism, drug addiction, and co-occurring mental illness. In the introduction to his report, he asks: “Are we as a nation willing to take on an epidemic that is causing great human suffering and economic loss?” For more than 50 years, Oxford House™ has answered that question with a resounding ‘yes.’ We now have over 4,300 houses with more than 35,000 beds in 46 states and 827 cities.

► The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-690, approved November 18, 1988) as amended changed Subpart I of Part B of Title XIX of the Public Health Service Act (42 USC 300x) by adding a new section 1916A establishing a program entitled "Group Homes for Recovering Substance Abusers." This section required each state, as a contingency of receiving funds under the SAPT Block Grant, to establish a revolving fund of at least $100,000 to provide loans to private, nonprofit entities for setting up housing for recovering individuals as democratically operated drug free recovery programs.

► Requirement is for the established program entitled “Group Homes for Recovering

Substance Abusers” with a non-profit organization (see above). State Agencies act solely as a flow-through as most states do not have the capability to provide housing and loans for setting up housing.

► There are now 4,300 houses Internationally, with over 30,000 residents living in them that are affiliated with Oxford House Incorporated. If other vendors were to attempt this contract, it would mean the loss of the relationship with the 4,300 existing Oxford Houses as the new vendor would not be able to manage them as they are, by definition, Oxford Houses and are affiliated with Oxford House, Inc. The state would have to manage them as independents and would have to begin to manage the revolving loan fund. It is for these reasons that a sole source contract is warranted.

► Other State Agencies have attempted to administer the Revolving Loan Fund only to realize that it proved cumbersome and prohibitively expensive regarding staff time required to receive, investigate, approve loan applications, and collect, repay, and report on loans

3 Jason, L. A., Olson, B. D., Ferrari, J. R., & Lo Sasso, A. T. (2006). Communal housing settings enhance substance abuse.

4 Bergman, B. G., Hoeppner, B. B., Nelson, L. M., Slaymaker, V., & Kelly, J. F. (2015). The effects of continuing care on emerging adult outcomes following residential addiction treatment. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 153, 207-214.

made.

► Oxford House Inc. has the only successful track record in defending our chartered houses against cities that refuse to make a “reasonable accommodation” for the handicapped (which includes those in recovery from addiction), thereby assuring that recovering individuals can live together in a group and support each other to avoid relapse. Oxford House, Inc. will defend any landlord who rents his house as an Oxford House against cities that use “too many unrelated people living together” or other arguments to attempt to close the house.

► Oxford House Inc.’s claim that the Oxford House system helps those suffering from a substance use disorder to avoid returning to the use of drugs and/or alcohol has been confirmed in research by an eminent university (DePaul University, Chicago Illinois) (See www.oxfordhouse.org under the category of Publications/Evaluations/DePaul).

► Oxford Houses were used as the model of self-run and self-supported recovery homes in the Federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. It created the loan fund from which recovering individuals could borrow to rent and set up their own recovery homes. Under that law, houses started with a federal loan have to follow the self-run and self-supported model, and having this codified into law has made it easier to remove residents who have relapsed from the house.

► The provision of “Group Homes for those Recovering From a Substance Use Disorder" is not commercially available anywhere else in Idaho.

Oxford House, Inc. is the originator of the idea of this type of recovery home and is the model for the legislation. We are the only agency with the experience and willingness to handle the establishment of homes and loan repayments.

At Oxford House, Inc., we value the responsibility of providing such a necessary service, and we are committed to maintaining quality assurance as we strive for excellence in meeting the needs of those seeking safe, supportive housing and a life in recovery.

Sincerely, Jason Paul Jarreau Director, Contracts and Development