A new sober living home has opened in Peaceful Village.
Cedar Oak is a faith-based, residential facility that provides job assistance and counseling to people enrolled in a sobriety program.
The Northwest Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce held a May 29 ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of the home at 5920 Antire Road, across the street from New Hope Fellowship Church in Peaceful Village, a small village in northwest Jefferson County with about 95 residents, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
Dan Ross Jr., a pastor at New Hope Fellowship Church and an investor in BRR Investments that built the sober living home, said the facility was needed in the county.
He said four people are currently staying at the home, which can house up to 16 people.
Ross said the home is open to people who have completed either the Adult and Teen Challenge 12-month rehabilitation program or another similar program. Adult and Teen Challenge, based in High Ridge, is a program based on Christian principles that helps people overcome addiction, according to its website.
Ross is the chairman of Adult and Teen Challenge’s Board of Directors.
“(The sober living home) is not a place that they come to if they’re actively using or drinking or anything like that,” Ross said. “They have to work, they have to pay rent, they have to stay sober.”
Ross said residents may stay in the home for nine to 12 months and will be subject to random drug tests. They will also attend weekly meetings provided by Cedar Oak on financial responsibility and life skills. Residents must also attend a local church of their choice and provide proof.
Cedar Oak will offer the residents transportation to work or church at an additional cost, he said.
A house manager will live at the home, Ross added.
“If they’ve completed a year at Adult Teen Challenge and they stay with us for nine to 12 months, that gives them up to two years of living sober,” Ross said. “Our goal at the end of that is that they’ve been able to save up money.”
Ross said opening the sober living home has been about three years in the making.
He said Darrell Missey, a former Jefferson County Circuit judge, approached him about opening a residence for those enrolled in a sobriety program. Ross said Missey is now director of the Missouri Department of Social Service’s Children’s Division, so Shannon Dougherty, chief administrative judge of the Family Court in Jefferson County, stepped in to provide guidance.
“Judge Missey came to me and other people and said, ‘We have no transitional or sober living houses in Jefferson County,’” Ross said. “There was a group that met every few months trying to figure it out, and we just kept working on it.
“It’s been a process. It’s been in process in some way or another for three years. It’s taken this long to get it to come to fruition.”
The home, which has 16 bedrooms and four bathrooms, is different from other sober living houses in that it’s brand new, Ross said.
“We looked at sober living houses, and traditionally they are an existing older house, and they retrofit it,” Ross said. “They put two or three beds in a room, and they have 12 people sharing, say, two bathrooms. Because we were going to build, we wanted to make it nice so that people have a great opportunity for success.”
An additional, identical building is nearing completion at the back of the property, Ross said. Once the first house is full, new residents will move into the second building, which also can house up to 16 people, Ross said.
The construction of the sober living home met with some pushback from surrounding neighbors on Antire Road, particularly Jon Jerome, who lives next to the sober living home and complained that it didn’t meet Jefferson County codes.
Ross has said the building doesn’t have to meet county codes, just Peaceful Village and High Ridge Fire Protection District codes, adding that the building has passed the fire district’s inspections.
Jerome started a petition to place a measure on the April 2 ballot to disincorporate the village, but the measure failed, with nine votes to disincorporate and 47 to remain a village.
For more information about Cedar Oak, visit cedaroak.org or call 314-227-9227.