Witnesses tell House committee that HB 58 would give local authorities power to inspect and curb problematic recovery homes

At a House Community Revitalization Committee hearing, prosecutors, local elected officials and treatment-board leaders urged support for House Bill 58, which would create a certificate-of-need framework for recovery housing and give local authorities authority to inspect facilities, investigate complaints and enforce standards.

The bill drew testimony from Scioto County Prosecuting Attorney Shane Tinneman, community leaders including former Portsmouth city councilman Edwin Martel and Mayor Jeff Gaskin of South Point, Sheriff David Thurlman, Susan Schultz, executive director of the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Adams, Lawrence and Scioto counties, and county commissioner Scotty Powell.

Why it matters: Proponents said unregulated growth of recovery houses has strained emergency services, harmed neighborhood property values and allowed bad actors to operate facilities that provide substandard care or act as fronts for criminal activity. "It brings teeth to the local community through its local agencies to complete inspections and investigate complaints," Tinneman told the committee, arguing that the bill would give local officials the means to act on problems they see on the ground.

Prosecutor Shane Tinneman told the committee that Scioto County has seen both high-quality treatment providers and problematic operators that "are in it only to maximize profit at the expense of providing the client with all the tools and resources needed to advance recovery." He recounted patrol officers' reports of overdoses and houses with inadequate supervision and said the bill would enable local agencies to investigate and pursue enforcement.

Former Portsmouth councilman Edwin Martel said local zoning and code-enforcement gaps have left some recovery homes in unsafe or unsanitary conditions. "This bill is not anti recovery housing. This bill is pro recovery, pro safety, and pro community," Martel said, urging lawmakers to support standards that protect tenants and neighborhoods.

Susan Schultz, who runs the three-county ADAM board, told lawmakers she supports the bill but asked for more detail and implementation time. Schultz said her board's most recent cross-referenced lists showed 201 recovery houses across Adams, Lawrence and Scioto counties (11 in Adams County, 80 in Lawrence County and 10 in Scioto County) and a combined population of about 55,608 in the three counties. She recommended clarifying who would develop inspection standards, how investigators would be trained, and changing a flat application fee to a tiered fee tied to bed counts; she warned the board could not hire inspectors without the bill's fees and that funds could take up to a year to arrive.

Sheriff David Thurlman described the issue as a public-safety as well as health-care problem. He told the committee that, based on a February list from the ADAM board, Scioto County had 77 recovery facilities with 871 beds and that, from Jan. 1, 2022, through February of this year, his office recorded 456 calls for service tied to eight listed recovery providers. "This crisis is not just about health care, it's a public safety issue," Thurlman said, and he urged lawmakers to adopt the bill's local oversight tools.

County Commissioner Scotty (Scottie) Powell and other health-care executives framed the certificate-of-need approach as a familiar mechanism from other health sectors. Powell said registration rules enacted last year provided a baseline but left open questions about quality and distribution; he said the bill would help distribute recovery services more evenly across the state and give local experts power to investigate complaints.

Local officials described additional strains: mayors and council members said recovery operators are buying single-family homes and converting them to group housing, which they said can reduce available housing for first-time buyers and change neighborhood dynamics. Pastor Joseph Sandler and Mayor Jeff Gaskin described repeated constituent complaints about safety, property values and local services.

Points of disagreement and implementation questions: witnesses and committee members repeatedly raised practical concerns the legislation must address, including how state standards will align with local building and fire codes, whether ADAM boards should help write rules or the state department should promulgate them, staffing and training for investigators, the timing of fee receipts, and whether the bill should use a tiered application fee based on resident beds. Schultz said current lists from the Ohio Recovery Housing (ORH) and the Ohio mental-health registry must be combined and standardized to give local boards reliable data.

No formal vote or action was recorded at the hearing. Committee members asked witnesses follow-up questions; several asked for more data on the number of houses, bed counts, ownership concentration and the proportion of residents from outside the counties. Witnesses said some of that data is incomplete or protected by privacy rules and that registration and certification have only recently improved transparency.

Written testimony: the committee received additional written testimony referenced during the meeting. The hearing concluded with the committee adjourning after taking testimony and questions.

Ending: Supporters told lawmakers House Bill 58 would give local agencies tools to curb low-quality operators while allowing legitimate providers to operate; several witnesses asked lawmakers to refine implementation details, fund local boards for inspections and consider tiered fees and staged timelines before enforcement begins.