Senate panel weighs oversight vs. voluntary certification for recovery residences in S.157

Lawmakers on the Senate Health & Welfare Committee spent much of their Feb. 5 hearing on S.157 parsing two competing approaches to regulating recovery residences: a voluntary certification program written into the bill and a Health Department draft that would instead add recovery residences to a division-wide oversight role.

Katie McGlenn, legislative counsel, said the bill as introduced set out a voluntary certification process with a specific list of minimum standards and annual reporting requirements, while the Health Department’s draft removes that certification section and instead lists recovery residences among the Division of Substance Use’s program responsibilities. The department’s language would leave broader oversight authority in statute without creating a prescriptive certification structure.

Department staff defended including peer support in the statutory definition and said the draft aligns the definition with the existing language in Act 163. “Peer support is a key piece...even in the clinical space,” Emily Prueter, division director for substance use programs, said, arguing the definition was intended to capture community-coordinated supports across all four levels of recovery residences.

Committee members pressed staff on workforce capacity and whether Vermont currently has enough certified peer supporters to meet a statutory peer-support requirement at every level. Prueter said the state’s recovery centers and recovery service organizations provide statewide coverage for peer supports and that much of the proposed oversight would mirror existing certification and rulemaking processes used for treatment providers.

Members also debated a statutory clause that had said a relapse causing a resident’s exit from a recovery residence “shall not be deemed a cause” of homelessness for emergency-housing eligibility. Health Department witnesses and a representative of the Department for Children and Families told the committee that criterion is no longer part of GA emergency-housing eligibility determinations; advocates asked the committee to consider whether removing the clause could unintentionally block access to other services for residents who exit a recovery residence.

The bill as written included specific certification criteria — for example, attestation of compliance with standards, inspections with 10 days’ notice, resident-complaint and appeals processes, and annual aggregation of standardized data for the General Assembly. The department’s draft would rely on its broader rulemaking and oversight authority rather than an explicit legislative certification regime.

Committee members asked Health Department and recovery-provider representatives to meet and draft blended language that preserves important elements of National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NAR)-style certification and reporting while avoiding an excessively prescriptive or burdensome statutory framework. The committee did not vote on the bill at this session and deferred further markup pending that blended draft and additional testimony.

The committee indicated it wants statutory language that ensures compliance with relevant landlord-tenant law (9 V.S.A. chapter 137) and data collection appropriate to an initial program rollout, and to preserve continuity with existing accreditation or preferred-provider arrangements rather than disrupt ongoing certification work.