Info for Neighbors

Oxford House™ is a thirty-four year old concept and system of operation for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts to have a realistic opportunity to get comfortable enough in sobriety to stay clean and sober forever. Houses are always rented. Oxford House™ owns no property because our interest is recovery not money or wealth. We also want to avoid any temptation to fight over money or property.

By renting good houses in good neighborhoods, we have demonstrated that we can be good neighbors all over the country. As you can see on our website, well over a thousand houses provide homes for about 10,000 recovering individuals at any one time – and we have been proving it for over thirty years. Since 1975, neighbors have found that Oxford House™ residents are in fact good neighbors. In 2006, the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community (The Hayworth Press) Vol. 31, No. 1/2, 2006, pp 41-49 published an article This Is My Neighborhood: Comparing United States and Australian Oxford House Neighborhoods found–independent of Oxford House™ itself–that neighbors found Oxford House™ residents made “good neighbors.” Quoting Jason, Roberts and Olson (2004) the authors found that “neighbors living in immediate proximity of a U.S. Oxford House considered the residents more positively than persons living several blocks away; moreover, property values on the block where the Oxford Houses were located did not decrease once the setting was established.” In fact, everywhere Oxford House has located property values increased – contrary to some of the unfounded fears that a few individuals sometimes fan when they learn an Oxford House™ is coming to town.

Ever since the first Oxford House™ started in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1975, the men and women in Oxford House have made all that they do – or fail to do – open to the public. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Oxford House™ World Services keeps its finances, actions and locations open to the public because we want the public and neighbors to know what we do and why we do it. Feel free to stop by and visit the men or women living in an Oxford House™.

All our materials are included at our web site and neighbors can understand how Oxford House™ works by downloading and reading any of the material. This is important for two reasons:[1] we want neighbors to know us, and [2] neighbors want to know us because they usually know someone or have a relative that has been an active alcoholic or drug addict. Oxford House™ becomes good news because the Oxford House™ self-run, self-supported, disciplined concept and system of operations replaces hopelessness with hope and failure with success. Moreover, the Oxford House™ concept of self-support saves taxpayers a lot of money and it produces successful recovery without relapse for four to five times as many individuals as any other recovery method afforded alcoholics and/or drug addicts. Please look over all the material we have at this website and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. We will get back to you quickly. We have been and will continue to be good neighbors. A good starting place to understand Oxford House™ is Oxford House: Expanding to Meet the Need and the pamphlet Self-Help Recovery Housing Since 1975 – both of which can be download as PDF documents by simply clicking on the titles. The 2006 National Drug Control Strategy from The White House highlights Oxford House™ as A Place of Hope and Healing. That it is – and a good neighbor as well.