Recovery Industry

Opening a Sober Living Home In North Carolina? Learn What it Takes

North Carolina - particularly Western North Carolina, a tourist favorite - is a very popular location for sober living homes.

The Absolute Best Updates you Can Make to Your Sober Living Home in 2021 (Part 1)

Sober living homes went through dramatic changes in 2020 to survive the pandemic - but what about 2021?

Chaotic Admissions and Billing? Check Out Sober Living Apps' Admissions 2.0 Update

One of the best parts of working on the team at the Sober Living App is working with sober living home operators around the country. Leading by example, the recovery housing community continually inspires us to work harder and stretch further than we thought possible. 

At the Sober Living App, we don’t just serve the recovery community, we are the recovery community. 

That being the case, it makes sense that we take a lot of our business ideas and inspiration directly from the wisdom of the recovery community. 

Here’s one of the big ones: We’re always hustling to improve the service we offer to others.

As COVID-19 has swept through the country, we’ve all changed the way we live. The sober living world has felt these changes acutely. 

At the Sober Living App, we listen when our users tell us that things need to change, and fast. So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, making the best all-in-one software solution for sober living home operators even better and even more useful in a changing world. 

The result? A smoother and more powerful app experience than you ever imagined, especially designed to take on all of the new challenges sober living home operators are facing today.

Read on to learn about the brand new features you’ll find in the new Sober Living App Behave Admissions 2.0 Summer 2020 Update.

Problem: Your clunky, time consuming admissions process involves a ton of multicolored paperwork, a lot of signature bottlenecks and awkward payment collection. 

Put your admissions process in the cloud and forget about the paperwork chaos. Every sober living home needs a simple, clean way to process admissions that saves time and sanity.

Solution: Our Summer 2020 Update removes all remaining admissions drama and replaces it with a zen-like digital process that’s 100% clean, simple and smart. 

Here’s how. 

A singular workflow eliminates user error and guides even the most newbie employee through the entire process, start to finish. 

The application form is customized. It’s online in the cloud. Potential residents can fill it out on their phone wherever they are. Once completed, all of the information they’ve entered into the application automatically populates the rest of your system.

Finally, we’ve added one-click signature gathering to our admissions process so you can now collect signatures via text or email from all parties. No more bottlenecks. 

Problem: Your cash flow has slowed to a trickle. You’re not paid, or if you are paid, it’s not on time. Your “billing department” is an afterthought. Worst case? You’re tracking “money stuff” on a spreadsheet.

Built in billing? Yes. Sober Living App’s automatic billing assistant automates everything you hate about your billing process.

Solution: Step away from the spreadsheet and meet your new bespoke billing assistant, designed especially for sober living home operators. 

Create a services menu using the services book feature and change the pricing wherever you want. 

Take 10 different types of payment, including Venmo and CashApp, automatically through our resident portal. 

Let mom and dad cover payments easily with our simple multiple payer feature. 

Wasting time chasing late payments? Stop. Our recurring automatic billing assistant creates new bills as they become due and sends automatic reminders to residents until they pay up. 

Problem: COVID-19 has generated several new categories of information that you need to collect from residents. Temperatures and test results are buried in electronic notes or jotted down on stickies.  

COVID-19 is sticking around for a while. We’re setting you up with the tools your sober living home needs to deal with it professionally.

Solution: Build COVID into your system. 

As we’re learning, the coronavirus is not temporary. This “new normal” is going to be happening for a while. We’ve accepted what we can’t change, and you can, too. In our summer update, you’ll find:

  • Vital signs tracking (including temperature)

  • COVID-19 test results tracking 

  • Specific coronavirus risk-factor questions built into the new resident application 

Ready to See More? 

Our summer Admissions 2.0 Update is just the icing on the cake. 

The Sober Living App is the most powerful, most thoughtful all-in-one app for the sober living community on the market today. 

Operating sober living homes is hard, but it doesn’t have to be chaotic. Let us show you how easy (and profitable) it is to bring order to your sober living home. 

Claim your free trial today

Sober Living App's New Billing Assistant Makes Getting Paid Even Easier

Sober living app’s new billing assistant is making getting paid even easier!

It’s probably safe to say that collecting payments at your sober living home isn’t your favorite part of the job. Few people get into sober living home management for the pleasure of collecting rent. 

But every month, COVID-19 or no, it needs to be done. 

At Sober Living App, we’re excited to announce some new tools we’ve added to our Summer 2020 update that are designed to make getting paid as easy as possible - every time.

Sober Living Homes Often Collect Payments in a Disorganized Way

Disorganized payment collection costs sober living homes time and money.

Many sober living homes collect rent haphazardly. Your sober living home manager might set up a box to collect checks, maintaining a spreadsheet to track who’s paid and who still needs to chip in. That’s sober living home bill collection at its most basic.

The pitfalls in this system are obvious:

  • It takes a lot of time to personally remind residents of the payment due date 

  • More time is wasted on reminding late payers to settle their accounts 

  • It’s logistically complicated for multiple payers to chip in on a single account 

  • It’s easy to lose track of who’s paid and who hasn’t

  • Physical checks and cash are time consuming to process  

There’s a better way.

Here’s The Changes We’ve Made to the Make Sober Living Home Billing Easier 

Our new summer 2020 update is the billing game changer your sober living homes needs.

At Sober Living App, we’ve always made it easy for sober living homes to collect payments online. Residents have always been able to view bills and make payments on their phone using the resident portal. Our easy cloud-based application allows new residents to make move-in payments as they are completing the intake paperwork on their phone

It was a good start. 

But for our 2020 Summer Update, we’ve made a few key changes to really kick your billing efforts into high gear. 

Read on to learn more about how these tools and features will help keep your sober living home profitable with less time and effort. 

Our Click Through Services Book Make it a Snap to Collect Sober Living Home Rent 

Sober Living App’s service book feature helps you save time.

Our new Services Book makes it easy to create a prefab “menu” of services your sober living home offers with built-in pricing. Simply choose the service, the date and the resident and the bill completes itself. 

Write a title and description of the service, along with the price, and set the billing cycle as monthly, bi-monthly, weekly or daily. You can assign the service to a particular property, as well. 

For example, if you offer weekly massages at two different properties at two different price points, you can easily set that up in the services book in order to avoid confusion and ensure consistent pricing within each property. We take care of the rest.

Easy Automated Repeating Charges Take the Pressure Off Your Sober Living Home Manager 

 
Remove the added strain of billing details from your sober living home manager.
 

If you run a sober living home, then you have repeating charges. Rent, storage space, amenities: these all take place on a repeating basis. 

Our automated repeating charges feature make payment collection truly “set and forget.” Sit back and watch our repeating charges feature generate bills (and send reminders!) at whatever frequency works for your sober living home. It’s that easy.  

Our Updated Billing Assistant Gives Your Sober Living Home the Ability to Seamlessly Collect from Multiple Payers 

Collect payment for one bill from multiple payers with ease at your sober living home.

It’s so common for sober living home residents to rely on relatives or friends to help with their monthly expenses. Our Billing Assistant makes it easy for anyone to help out your residents with their financial obligations - anywhere, anytime, all from the convenience of their phone.

Now Your Sober Living Home Can Collect Even More Payment Methods

Accept many types of payment with ease at your sober living home.

All major credit cards? Of course. 

Cash, bank account, money order? Check. 

Paypal? Check. 

What about Cash App, Venmo and Zelle? You bet. 

We’ve expanded our collection of payment methods to reflect the ways sober living home residents want to pay their bills today. Why put up extra hurdles for your residents when you can make it easy for them to pay their bills using the payment method they feel most comfortable with? 

Happy residents means a healthier, happier sober living home environment for them - and you!

We’re Here to Help Your Sober Living Home Succeed 

Think these new tools might help your sober living home run more smoothly with less effort? 

Curious to learn more? 

Reach out to us to claim your free trial to see the Sober Living App difference today. 





Need Help? How to Get Small Business Relief for Your Sober Living Home During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Many sober living homes are struggling during the COVID-19 outbreak. Sober living homes rely on residents to pay rent so that they can remain solvent. When residents (or their families) lose their jobs or have their hours cut back in response to the pandemic, rent payments start falling through the cracks. When sober living homes’ cash flow takes a hit, mortgage and utility payments are at risk.

3 Coronavirus Changes Your Sober Living Home Needs to Make This Week

Sober living homes across the country are grappling with the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news: the recovery community is uniquely poised to deal with crises. We know how to meet seemingly insurmountable challenges head-on and stay in the fight against all odds. Our skills in self-determination, community-mindedness, and resiliency will serve us well in the coming months.

5 Things All of the Best Sober Living Home Managers Have in Common

Your sober living home is only as good as it’s manager.

Finding a good sober living home manager is probably the most important ingredient to a successful sober living home business. Sure, the right building is important and good residents are key but if you flub up on selecting your manager, your sober living home is definitely headed for disaster.

Being a sober living home manager is a tough job. It takes a rare combination of empathy, tough love, and common sense to pull it off well. When you’re interviewing for potential sober living home managers, you’ll want to look for certain qualities in your candidates. Some sober living home manager skills can be taught but many of them—like the oh so important soft skills that play a large part in the role— are harder to learn on the job. 

Today, let’s look at the top 5 things all of the best sober living home managers have in common.

Good Sober Living Home Managers Are Organized

The devil is in the details for the sober living home manager.

Ask any domestic engineer: running a home is a complicated matter. There are a ton of details to track and they change constantly. Anyone who struggles with keeping the toilet paper stocked up in their house can relate to how easy it is for the details of domestic functionality to get lost in the shuffle. 

Add to that the dividing and assigning chores to residents, tracking resident payments, managing group activities, scheduling drug testing, arranging for home maintenance work, maintaining residence vehicles, and everything else that goes into running a sober living home smoothly and you have quite the “to do” list to contend with.

Good sober living home managers are organized. They have systems (like the Sober Living App, perhaps?) to keep track of everything that needs to be done. Automated reminders and easy-to-use templates make the workflow easier to manage.  

Good Sober Living Home Managers are Consistent

Good sober living home management requires a strong sense of boundaries and rules.

A good sober living home manager is also a rule enforcer. Residents in recovery need structure to relearn sober living so they can thrive in their new lifestyle without drugs and alcohol. Sober living home rules help provide that structure in early recovery.

When it comes to rule enforcement, it is so important that your sober living home manager draws firm and consistent boundaries with residents. If residents perceive that your sober living home manager treats them unfairly, it is very easy for the home to devolve into chaos. 

A good sober living home manager will treat all residents equally and create systems that are built on fairness. They adhere to the rulebook at all times and don’t make exceptions lightly. They will not hesitate to enforce rules, especially when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.

Good Sober Living Home Managers are Proactive

Sober living managers need to respond to problems before they become huge issues.

The best sober living home managers are proactive, meaning thy anticipate problems and deal with them before they become crises. This includes everything from interpersonal conflicts to leaky pipes. 

A good sober living home manager is observant of their surroundings and is always looking for ways to improve what’s around them. They know that early intervention is the key to a well functioning home. 

Good Sober Living Home Managers are Awesome Communicators 

Sober living home management is not just facility management, it’s also people management. Good communication is essential.

The best sober living home managers are top tier communicators. Their “people skills” come in handy when managing residents, sure, but they are also important when negotiating home repairs, dealing with prospective residents, and communicating with you, the owner. 

Find a sober living home manager who is responsive to your texts, calls and/or emails. It should be easy to get clear, concise information from your sober living home manager. A good sober living home manager loves to talk through problems and solutions. They value direct, open, and honest communication.

Good Sober Living Home Managers Document Everything

When good sober living home managers are in doubt, they write it down.

There is a lot to document at a sober living home: behavioral incidents, damage reports, rent payments, drug testing results, chores. A good sober living home manager doesn’t shy away from documentation, in fact, their motto is, “when in doubt, document.” Strong documentation not only helps with smooth day-to-day operations and easy bookkeeping, but it also helps coordinate care between managers and other players in the residents’ care team. Moreover, excellent documentation acts as a kind of insurance against liability claims or other potential disputes with residents, community members, or even maintenance workers. A good sober living home manager will never have to resort to “he said, she said” debates because they’ll have access to written documentation about most incidents. 

Every Good Sober Living Home Manager Needs the Right Tools to Get the Job Done

At BehaveHealth, we created the Sober Living App to help sober living home managers save their organizations time and money. Designed especially for the recovery industry, the Sober Living App eliminates paper record keeping and puts everything sober living home managers need at their fingertips at all times. 

From bed management to resident records to maintenance tasks, the Sober Living App automates the management of sober living homes in a frustration-free, intuitive format so that your staff can focus on providing excellent service to residents. 

Why not claim your free trial of the Sober Living App today?






How to Make Your Sober Living Home Stand Out from the Crowd

Differentiation. USP—unique selling proposition. Wow-factor. 

You’ve heard it described in different ways, but they’re all getting at the same thing. 

What makes your business unique? 

Why should residents choose your sober living home over another sober living home? 

If you don’t know the answer to this question, you need to do some soul-searching about how to best position your sober living home in a crowded market.

5 New Year's Resolutions for Optimizing Your Sober Living Home 

Have you set your New Year’s resolutions for your sober living home yet? This time of year is a great time to audit your processes and decide what’s working—and what’s not. When it comes to managing a sober living home, there’s always something that could be improved, whether that’s refining the resident experience, fine-tuning operations efficiency, or just simply bolstering the bottom line. 

Dealing with NIMBYs at Your Sober Living House 

Sober living homes are a great investment opportunity and a wonderful way to make a huge difference in the lives of recovering addicts. Managed properly, your sober living home will deliver great ROI year. Sure, there are some hurdles to overcome, like developing a structure for dealing with clients who break the rules and locking down an excellent house manager. 

5 Best Apps and Software for Your Sober Living House 

Managing a sober living house is a demanding, time-consuming task. It’s important to outsource as much of the work as possible in order  to keep the workload in check. Oftentimes, that means turning to technology—apps and software designed to do the heavy lifting —for a helping hand. 

3 Things to Look for in Your First Sober Living Home Real Estate Deal

If you’re looking to take on the risks and rewards of this high-return investment strategy, there are a few things you should know before taking the plunge. Investing in sober living homes is a unique real estate niche with its own pitfalls—but when it’s done right, you’ll have a cash-flowing investment to be proud of for years to come.

You Opened a Sober Living Home—Now What?

So, you finally bit the bullet and opened a sober living home—congratulations!
You probably already know what a great investment sober living is right now and what a high demand there is for this type of service. You’re feeling confident—and rightly so—about your sober living home as a smart investment and a sound contribution to your community.