HATTIESBURG — Mississippi continues to fall behind neighboring states when it comes to sober-living housing, a critical step in long-term addiction recovery.
Sober-living housing often follows the Oxford House Model, a community-based approach to recovery that emphasizes peer support, shared responsibility and sober living.
Oxford Houses are democratically run, self-supported recovery homes for individuals overcoming drug and alcohol addiction. They offer residents a stable, substance-free environment without professional staff, where individuals hold each other accountable and contribute equally to household expenses and operations.
While Alabama has more than 80 Oxford Houses, Tennessee lists 175 and Louisiana has more than 180, Mississippi has just 19 — with most of them opening after 2013. Advocates said the need is rising, but state support is limited, and expansion has slowed.
Oxford House Vibrant, a new women’s recovery home in Hattiesburg, quietly opened three weeks ago as part of a growing effort to fill the gap.
“Most women, when they call, they either said, ‘I don’t have a safe place to go,’ or ‘The place I do have to go is not safe; I would relapse the moment I got there,’” said Lauren Matheny, president of Oxford House Vibrant. “You need a safe haven, because coming out of rehab, going back to the same place, same things, is just not going to work.”
A house, not a facility
The Oxford House Model is what drew Peggy Henry to the Vibrant house after leaving a treatment center in Hazlehurst two weeks ago. Determined not to return to the people and pressures that fed her addiction, she chose to move into the Hattiesburg home — even though she had family who were sober.
“I had a family I could have stayed with that are clean … but I had to get away from people, places and things,” Henry said.
Her new home gives her more than a bed. It gives her structure, autonomy and community. It also brings her closer to her mother’s care facility.
“We are still good people; we just have an addiction,” Henry said. “That’s not something that is uncurable or unhealable. It’s to be overcome.”
Vibrant opened with help from funds pooled by the chapter’s other homes. Matheny, who also leads that chapter, slept on an air mattress the first night. Today, the house has seven beds, couches, dressers and a washing machine — most of it donated by the community.
“There’s definitely a need for it in Hattiesburg,” said Maggie Woodard, who works on a part-time basis as the state’s only outreach worker for Oxford House. “We’re not even really looking to expand here because we don’t have the funding or the staff. This house kind of fell into our lap.”
Demand rising despite stalled state support
Nationwide, Oxford House reports more than 3,600 homes — nearly double the number that existed in 2015.
Mississippi’s slower growth reflects deeper tensions. In 2015, the state Department of Mental Health stopped offering $4,000 seed grants to help open new homes, citing political backlash and controversy surrounding one Jackson house’s location and application.
Then-Gov. Phil Bryant wrote in a letter to agency leadership that Oxford House was “more focused on expanding its footprint in Mississippi than on providing the time, peer support and living environment necessary to support long-term recovery.”
Despite that, the state Mental Health Department later defended the model as evidence-based and endorsed by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A 2007 DePaul University study found only 18.5% of Oxford House residents relapsed during a one-year period.
More recent research shows even lower relapse rates — about 13% over 27 months — with Oxford House residents twice as likely to stay sober compared to those returning to typical housing after rehab.
Still, Mississippi’s lack of a state contract with Oxford House means only part-time help is available. In comparison, the state of Washington’s Oxford House operation employs 14 outreach workers to support more than 300 homes and open about 20 new ones each year.
Woodard said the lack of backup housing in places like Hattiesburg is a real challenge.
“When someone relapses, we ask them to leave to protect the sobriety of others,” she said. “But once they’re on the other side of that door … we don’t have a lot of places to send them.”
Those interested in supporting the Oxford House model in Mississippi can donate household goods, furniture, or funds to help open and maintain homes.
People seeking a sober living environment can learn more or apply for housing at www.oxfordhouse.org or by contacting the Oxford House national helpline at 1-800-689-6411.