Community Update

Real House was a HUGE disappointment for my family and I. Being a former client I DO NOT recommend choosing them to be a recovery source. First of the place is an absolute dump. There is a big hole in the kitchen ceiling covered by garbage bags, there is also the same in the upstairs bathroom. We had to put newspaper on the floor incase it rained. If the pipes in the basement leaked and was covered in feces and water us women had to clean it up. If you got written up for anything you would be required to do extra duties like raking the leaves, cleaning up the snow, basically anything they could think of. Instead of helping with your recovery process one staff member would put you down by saying that us women are "Society's worst" and that we were "All Criminals attempting to get better" in my opinion that is not something you would say to someone in early recovery!!! If things were happening in the house that staff didn't like they would enforce a lockdown, meaning that you weren't allowed to call your families, there would be no passes or visits, there was no TV, radios, iPods, basically you were shut off from the world and had to sit in one room doing groups all day. Most staff is also in recovery but there was always talk that certain staff had relapsed 3 years ago and still ran around the house like she was on some sort of speed and has an extensive arrest record. Alot of women relapse inside the house either by using drugs or drinking again and staff isn't aware of it. We always deviated with out their knowledge. Also you were forced to attend their IOP which is not licensed for mental health or have co-occurring groups like they claim to be and discourage you from going to a different IOP bc then they don't receive the money from the state. Also most of the house is drug court and they take on too many clients that they have to place them in the shelters in Montclair and don't inform drug courts of that. The Real House is just a disaster and should really be inspected by the board of health and shut down until all repairs are made to ensure the well being of their clients, staff should also be re-evaluated and maybe randomly drug tested themselves and replace staff that is a problem and then maybe you would have happier,sober clients.