Identifying the Availability of Recovery Housing in the U.S.: The NSTARR Project

Abstract BACKGROUND Home is essential to recovery, and recovery housing can play an important role for individuals seeking a supportive environment. The National Study of Treatment and Addiction Recovery Residences (NSTARR) Project constitutes the largest and most diverse study of recovery housing to date. We describe the development of a national sampling frame to study recovery housing, as well as findings on availability and distribution of recovery housing across the U.S. METHODS Data from publicly available sources and lists maintained by entities tracking recovery housing were compiled. Residences for which locating information was available were geocoded and linked with U.S. Census data and drug and alcohol mortality data. We used hot spot analysis and multilevel models to describe the geographic distribution of recovery residences and assess whether residences are located in areas of high need. RESULTS The NSTARR database contains information on 10,358 residences operated by 3,628 providers in all 50 states. Residences were more likely (p CONCLUSIONS Despite a wealth of research on some types of recovery housing, critical gaps in the field’s understanding about the nature of recovery housing remain. The NSTARR Project represents an important first step to expand research on recovery housing across the country.