The success metrics of your sober home is something you should be thinking about long before your first resident moves in. Sober homes across the country serve different purposes, so what constitutes ‘success’ in your home may differ from other sober homes in the area.
SOBRIETY
Every sober home should have some success metric around the sobriety of its residents. I recommend setting goals for successful transitions for new residents (0-3 months), and for residents moving out. The first 90 days are generally the most difficult, so by having something like 85% of residents reach 90 days is an attainable target.
TRANSITION
For the rest of the residents time in the home, I suggest setting a goal for ‘normal transitions’ back to normal life. This is a percent of residents that move out of the sober home sober after anywhere from 3 months to 2 years. Your two key metrics will be the percent of residents that reach 90 days clean, and the percent of residents that have a healthy transition to normality.
FINANCIAL RETURN
Apart from sobriety goals, sober homes should have a separate measure of success including revenue or profit targets. While getting residents to stay sober is important, if you’re losing money doing so then you need to alter some aspects of your home.
For some there is a financial incentive, so these sober homes may operate more as a business. This is more common in high end homes where rent can exceed $5,000 a month. For others structured as non profits, the success metric may be to create as many successful transitions as possible in order to be a positive influence in the community around the home.
EDUCATION
For others it may be understanding your status in your community, and your goal may be that a number of community members appreciate your service. Perhaps you’d like to become a favorite destination for certain treatment centers, or you simply want to help a certain demographic get and stay sober. Whatever your secondary goal is, think long and hard on it. It will be important when designing aspects of your house, activities, rules, and the folks in recovery you target.
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