An Illinois Village Says It Can't Stop a Recovery Home From Opening

Six people in recovery from substance use disorder moved into a house on the 3600 block of Sunnyside Avenue in Brookfield, Illinois, last week. The village government says it was not told in advance and had no role in the lease, and officials say there is nothing in local code that would have let them review the arrangement first.

The property at 3626 Sunnyside Ave., a former Airbnb rental, now operates as an Oxford House: a self-run, self-supported residence where members split household expenses and hold each other accountable for staying drug- and alcohol-free. There is no house manager and no outside operator on site. Six people currently live there, according to the resident who identified himself as the home's core member.

The arrival has unsettled a block that includes about 18 children, and it has raised a question that surfaces in towns across the country whenever a recovery residence opens inside a residential neighborhood: who, if anyone, gets to review the decision before people move in. Village Manager Tim Wiberg told the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark that Brookfield had "no advance knowledge" of the lease and that Oxford House had no obligation to provide any.

"Oxford doesn't own the homes; they have a relationship with the property owner," Wiberg said. "Those are transactions no municipality would be involved in."

How an Oxford House operates

Oxford House is a national nonprofit network of sober shared residences. Each house is financially independent — members pay a share of rent and utilities — and self-governing, with residents voting on who joins and who must leave. The organization's own description is explicit that members can stay as long as they remain sober, do not disrupt the house and pay their share. The network operates 32 houses in the Chicago area, including three in Burbank and one in Justice, according to the Landmark.

That model is the reason local governments have limited leverage over where a house opens. A single-family home leased to a group of unrelated adults in recovery is, from the village's side, a private lease between a landlord and tenants. Brookfield's zoning code does bar short-term rentals, a prohibition Wiberg said a code update approved Oct. 12 did not change — a point of particular irritation for the property owner, who said he had operated an Airbnb at the address for several years until the village cited him in September and forced him to stop.

Martin Arteaga, president of Green Building Partners Inc., which owns the property, said he leases the house to an individual rather than to Oxford House itself. He was blunt about the sequence of events. "They put a violation on my door, stating I was out of zoning code, and lo and behold, they dragged me through the building court," he said. "They made me remove it. Now we have the Oxford House. I wish I still had the Airbnb."

What the village can and cannot regulate

Wiberg's account of Brookfield's authority is narrow by design. Municipalities do not approve or reject tenants, and he said federal and state housing laws prevent a village from dictating who lives in a private residence. Local enforcement begins with conduct: noise complaints, unkempt properties, garbage, or a crime.

"Where a municipality gets involved, we react to the actions of the people who are staying there," he said.

Village President Michael Garvey confirmed that position at a board meeting where neighbors raised the issue. "I informed the residents that we will follow all federal, state, county and local ordinances in the neighborhood," he said.

The practical result is that residents who want a say in whether a recovery home opens on their block have no procedural step to use. Rosa Ramos, who attended a planning and zoning commission meeting on Oct. 22 and then spoke to the village board the following Monday, said the message she heard was that officials would look into it within the limits of the law.

"I don't know if they are criminals. I don't know if they are mentally ill. I don't know when they are coming or going," Ramos said. "Where are they from?"

Nick Boyko, who lives across the street with three children, framed his objection around notice rather than the residents themselves. "It's really that they were able to come in unannounced and unapproved," he said. "I'm all for people trying to improve their lives and get better, but I don't think this is the place."

The owner's answer

Arteaga pushed back on the framing that the house represents a risk to the block. "We're not bringing in a bunch of pedophiles," he said. "These are human beings. These are people who are living in a supportive community. There have been many success stories through Oxford."

He also argued that the residents have legal standing to live there, describing them as "a protected class" with "the legal right to exist." A local Oxford House spokesperson did not return the newspaper's calls for comment, and the organization's national office was not quoted in the account.

The dispute is a local version of a question that has followed recovery housing as the model has spread: whether a residence for people in recovery is a household or a facility, and which set of rules applies. A national review of recovery housing published in October, covered in earlier reporting on that study, framed the same tension from the policy side. For residents of residential recovery programs, the appeal of an Oxford House is cost and autonomy: no house manager and no outside operator, with rent shared among peers rather than billed to an insurer.

For Brookfield, the question is what comes next. Under the village's reading of the law, the answer is whatever the house's residents do — or do not do — that gives the village a reason to act. "We have a local administrative hearing process we hold at village hall," Wiberg said. "That's where we adjudicate local violations."