✔️ New Home Checklist

Typically, we begin this process several months prior to your opening day. The times listed for each step below represent an estimated time before opening we recommend that this work is completed.

Congratulations! You have a home prepared and ready to open! Are you ready? This process should start about 60 days before the day you plan to open. While we work together to open your new home, be sure that you are on top of your responsibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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🎉 Opening a Recovery Residence

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Background:

• Why do you want to do this?
• Have you done your research? Consider:
  • What are the requirements for opening a recovery residence in your state?
  • What is the demand for recovery residences in your area?
  • What is the competition like?
  • How can Vanderburgh Communities help you differentiate your residence?

Financial Considerations:

• What are the up-front costs for opening a recovery residence?
• Do you have funding? Consider:
  • In general
  • With Vanderburgh Communities
  • What are the options if you don't have funding?

Strategic Plan:

• Building your team:
  • Who do you need on your leadership team?
  • Do you need a maintenance person or CPA?
  • Who else should be on your team?
  • How can Vanderburgh Communities support you in building your team?
• Picking a location:
  • What factors should you consider when choosing a location?

NARR Certification:

• What is NARR certification?
• Why is it important?
• How can you obtain NARR certification?

Feasibility:

• What should you charge for your recovery residence?
• How can you evaluate potential homes? Consider:
  • The Sober House Financial Calculator (SHFC)
  • Other factors to consider when evaluating potential homes

Creating your Business:

• How should you form your legal entity?
• How can you obtain your EIN?
• How can Vanderburgh Communities help you in creating your business?

Charter Agreements:

• What are charter agreements?
• How can Vanderburgh Communities help you with charter agreements?
• Pre-charter checklist items

Onboarding & Training:

• What do you need to be prepared to do?
• How can Vanderburgh Communities help you with onboarding and training?
• Pre-charter checklist items

Facility Standards:

• What are the facility standards for a recovery residence?
• How can Vanderburgh Communities help you meet facility standards?
• Pre-charter checklist items

New Home Checklist:

• How can Vanderburgh Communities help you with a new home checklist?
• Pre-charter checklist items.

 

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📝 Planning for a New Home

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Planning for a new home is an important step in opening a sober living facility. Here is a checklist to guide you through the process:

Core Strategy:

• Build your team
• Define core leadership
• Identify House Mentor
• Hire a CPA
• Establish maintenance protocols

Build Referral Relationships:

• Create a list of referral sources for residents
• Conduct outreach efforts
• Consider the kind of outreach needed for the home

Staff Support:

• Provide outreach contacts
• Train staff for community outreach
• Consider Vanderburgh House's Outreach Services

Marketing Information:

• Determine marketing practices to help promote your home
• Name your home
• Develop a marketing plan for digital and print media

Certification Plan:

• Work with Outreach and Operations to certify your home
• Discuss the details of the certification plan with your Operations Manager

Set your Home Policies:

• Establish your intake policies
• Decide on who is responsible for phone screens
• Determine intake considerations
• Establish accounting policies
• Create your Home Policies poster
• Decide on lawn care/snow shoveling policy
• Create a policy on high-energy appliances
• Establish a parking policy

Develop Your Resource Database:

• Prepare a list of local recovery resources
• Provide resources to Outreach Coordinator or Operations Manager
• Compile photos and written content for your website

Set Your Timeline:

• Schedule weekly check-ins
• Create a budget
• Determine occupancy goals
• Allocate an outreach budget
• Determine advertising and marketing material budget

Payments:

• Consider payment options when ordering marketing materials

Note: Remember to consult with your Operations Manager or Outreach Coordinator throughout the process to ensure that your new home meets Vanderburgh House's standards.

 

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🏡 Setting Up a New Home

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2 weeks before opening day:

• Obtain residential telecom services for internet, television, and phone
• Set up the modem and router in a central location accessible to all residents
• Choose a plan for waste management and develop a plan for trash disposal
• Consider contracting for landscaping and snow removal services or assign them to residents as part of their home chores
• Consider hiring a pest control company for regular service
• Decide on security services

Physical setup:

• Set up a sign-in area with necessary materials
• Establish a television area with seating provided
• Ensure the computer is set up and able to access the internet
• Stock the laundry area with commonly accessible laundry soap

Certification plan:

• Display emergency contact information, evacuation and exit plans, and procedures in a visible area
• Prepare an evacuation plan for each floor of the building
• Create a whiteboard for resident names and phone numbers, chores and responsibilities, wifi password, notes, and notices

Supplies and inventory:

• Provide an initial supply of essential items in a common area for use by residents, including toilet paper, cleaning supplies, hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, towels, light bulbs, printer ink, paper towels, printer paper, house laundry, touch-up paint, and bedding
• Ensure that naloxone (Narcan) is available in each toilet with spare naloxone in the House Manager’s room
• Consider providing summer and winter tools, maintenance tools, and designated smoking areas
• Order an initial drug screen

Emergency plan:

• Create a detailed emergency plan to be determined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OLD STUFF FROM PREVIOUS ARTICLES

 

Planning to Open a New Home

 

• ✔️ Establish New Utility & Contract Services - This section will guide you on how you may connect new utility and other services to your home.

• ✔️ New Home Policy Decisions - This section will assist you developing policies that align with recovery, your approach to running your home, and assuring that these align with Vanderburgh's mission.

• ✔️ Naming your Home - Decide on a name for you home!

• ✔️ Physical Setup - Getting a sense of the physical space present in your home and beginning to plan how it will be set up is what this section is about and it lays out the types of things that will need to be considered.

• ✔️ New Home Outreach Activities - This is your initial outreach and showings for you new home. This will be absolutely imperative if your home is to get off to a strong start!

 

 

Ensure that you have a sufficient quantity of printed marketing materials. These should include, at a minimum:

1. Business cards

2. Media packets - Is this the resident handbook with the blue folder and the clear folder?

3. Tri-fold brochures

4. Referral cards

 

Be sure you have provided us the required items detailed in our New Home Marketing | Operator Responsibilities article.

Review your website and directory listings and ensure that all information is accurate and provides an excellent presentation of your home. Check the following:

• www.VanderburghHouse.com listing for your home

• www.SoberHouseDirectory.com listings, including:

  • Listing for your home, including photo and description

  • Content on the city page in which your home is located

  • Content on the state page in which your home is located

Most Operators chose to allocate an amount of funds to an advertising budget, typically ranging from $1,000 to $4,000 or more. These funds are paid to Vanderburgh House to be spent on paid advertising in advance of a home opening. Vanderburgh House does not charge a fee for managing advertising spending; advertising budgets will go entirely to the actual cost of advertising the availability of your new home.

 

This is a crucial step towards building a strong referral base for your new home.

• Complete your ✔️ New Home Outreach Activities

• Participate in social media outreach to raise awareness

 

This process will involve working closely with the Outreach Coordinator for your district as well as the Outreach Director. We will work with you hand-in-hand to develop an outreach plan for reaching contacts and developing referral sources.

Take a careful inventory of your personal and professional contacts who could serve as a referral source or other networking resource for your business. Document their full name, title/position, telephone number(s), fax number(s), email address, and the company or agency they work for. Your Outreach Coordinator will work with you to assure that these contacts are properly added to 💻 HubSpot.

 

For each new home, Vanderburgh House will add as many contacts and companies as we have access to and “assign” them to the appropriate Operator. Take a look through our list and see if you know anyone and reach out to introduce yourself!

 

• ✔️ Outreach Training | Stage I & ✔️ Outreach Training | Stage II should have prepared you to begin outreach. Additional training, materials, and preparation can be accessed through coordination with your Operations Manager & Outreach Coordinator

• ⚙️ Outreach - These articles will go into greater detail about outreach.

 

Even though you may not have a background in building systems or maintenance, it is important that you understand the basics of the systems in your home, their operation, and especially their safety features. This will include appliances, utilities (heating/cooling, water systems, electrical), structure, and various safety systems (fire/CO alarm systems, fire extinguishers, emergency exits, sprinkler systems, etc).

 

• Fire exit plan

• Fire drill schedule and plan

• Emergency procedures

 

Ensure your home as enough drug screening supplies to serve the residents you expect to have for the first few months. We recommend you have enough screens on hand for at least three months. Drugs screens must can be purchased from Vanderburgh House, but you may also purchase your own through other vendors. Make sure to record vendors in Buildium (see 🖥️ Manage Vendors | Buildium).

 

Engage a maintenance professional in your area who you are comfortable working with to accomplish regular maintenance, repairs, and emergency calls on your home.

 

 

Certification is highly recommended for all Operators. Find your state’s certification requirements and procedure in the section 📂 Sober House Certification. If your state's requirements are not present here, contact your Operations Manager immediately and we will work to remedy this!

Your initial certification will be completed by Vanderburgh House. If your state requires any re-certification, then we will provide all the education and materials that you will need to manage this yourself in the future.

Once you have completed the previous steps, you should be ready to open your home! Use this page and the related articles as a checklist to assure that you are ready to open! You can use your connections through your Outreach to announce an opening date.