adishman@craigdailypress. com
Craig will space out two more homes in Oxford until the end of January, bringing the city’s total to three.
Oxford House Elk Mountain, a sober living house for men, opened in 2022 after local physical care leaders expressed the need for sober living features in the community. Earlier this month, Oxford House Silmarwen joined him. While Elk Mountain offers a sober home for men, Silmarwen is reserved for women in recovery as well as their children.
Due to Elk Mountain’s misfortune, the men’s house, Oxford Home New Vision, is expected to become operational.
Sean Lawrence, an extension employee at Oxford House, explained that a basic detail of his style is the ability of members to live in houses indefinitely, as long as they maintain their sobriety. While this practice helps build skills in a home, they will possibly also require the opening of more homes.
Lawrence said it was clear earlier this fall that an additional home would benefit the Craig community.
Oxford House club applicants will need to be sober at the time of application. They’ll also need to interview with existing members of the household, whom they’ll want to get an 80% vote of approval to move in.
When a member joins Oxford House, they are responsible for paying their equivalent percentage of the space’s expenses, adding estimated rent and utilities. Members also work together to manage the space, as there is no space manager or staff on site.
Members hold weekly business meetings, and occupants hold other positions within the house, such as president, treasurer, secretary, and coordinator.
“Our style is self-managed, autonomous, and peer-directed,” Lawrence said.
Everything works through a democratic process, supplemented by “old-fashioned” parliamentary procedures, parliamentary votes, and sharing of costs and workloads. There is also zero tolerance within the family for any drug or alcohol use. While AUs can be given randomly, Lawrence said it’s usually evident when a member starts over.
Like everything else, the factor is put to a vote in the House and if a member is removed, they must leave their home within 24 hours.
“We need to set the bar for success,” Lawrence said. And it’s a pretty undeniable program: stay sober, get a job, work, we’ll run the house, keep the peace, keep the blank position and you can stay here. “as long as you need. “
If the houses seem to function as a fraternity, it’s not entirely a coincidence.
Oxford House started in 1975, when a county-run halfway house in Silver Spring, Maryland was set to close due to dwindling funds. The residents were searching for a way to keep the house going and approached the homeowner (himself a recovering alcoholic), who suggested that they run it themselves.
Taking a cue from the former one-member school fraternity, the organization eschewed the cook, advisor, and manager of the on-site space and took the reins themselves.
“When they started, no one had any idea they were going to make it; no organization of alcoholics could just stay sober,” Lawrence said.
But they proved the skeptics wrong. And just five decades later, Oxford House still stands.
There are currently 125 Oxford homes in Colorado and more than 3,700 nationwide. They can be found internationally, in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, and Ghana.
“In many ways, Oxford House has set the standard for what recovery living is today,” Lawrence said. “The other people who live in the house, it’s their home. Over time, those homes become family homes with a circle of recovering relatives. We are not similar by blood, but we have a common bond.
Lawrence noted that there are still vacancies at Silmarwen and New Vision. The bureaucracy of the application and more data can be obtained in OxfordVacancies. com.
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