This sober living home promises a safe haven. Residents say they’re being exploited.

On a frigid afternoon in November, Dean Molin sat behind a t-shaped desk in his cramped backroom office at Recovery Placement Services, the sober living program he operates on Norwood Avenue in Long Branch.

Wearing a blue Adidas tracksuit, with a gold chain around his neck and an ashtray by his side, Molin was surrounded by five staff members standing shoulder to shoulder and his wife, Alicia.

Helping addicts through the recovery process, he explained, is a tough job that requires long hours for little pay.

“I’m just trying to do the right thing,” Molin, 59, said.

Court records and former clients tell a different story.

Molin is running an unlicensed sober living home, officials and former clients said — one of at least four such facilities he has managed since 2018. He hasn’t been reprimanded by authorities, in part, because his name appears on none of the associated business or property records.

An NJ Advance Media investigation for NJ.com also found:

• According to 10 former residents and internal records obtained by NJ Advance Media, Molin sometimes houses more than double the legal limit of residents permitted in his homes.
• Contrary to industry practices, Molin charges clients at least $750 upfront to get in the door at one of his homes, nine former clients said. Five of those clients also claimed Molin earns additional upfront payments by sending clients to treatment and then recharging once they return.
• Instead of using house infractions as teachable moments — which experts say is the preferred approach for addiction specialists — Molin encourages housemates to confront each other in front of the entire house when someone violates rules, six former residents said. They said he then punishes residents who break the rules with hours of tedious, sometimes labor-intensive house chores.
• Three former clients said they were housed in a moldy basement in the Norwood Avenue property, with little ventilation, and that complaints about their circumstances to Molin were ignored.

NJ Advance Media interviewed more than two dozen former clients, family members and experts, and reviewed internal documents and public records. The picture that emerged was of overcrowded facilities with minimal oversight, prone to leave some clients in an even worse financial position than when they entered.

Molin, the program director at Recovery Placement Services, disputed many of the findings and insisted his program does not fall under the state’s classification of a sober living house — defined, in part, as a “housing unit in which residents who are in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction may live in a supportive environment” that offers “no on-site supportive services, such as counseling.”

In a brochure, Molin advertises Recovery Placement Services as “affordable sober living with 24-hour staff,” which provides the “highest level of personalized care needed for long-term successful recovery from addictions.”

Molin’s own definition of the facility relies on a very specific interpretation of the word “living.”

He said, “Here it’s sober living, like sober LIVING — not like sober living. You understand? Like you have to be sober to live on this property,” he said.

Molin said he has never turned someone away because of money, never kicked anyone out because of finances and acts as a “mini social services” agency for people who have lost everything.

“They’re not going to shut me down, I know that, because I stay this close to the guidelines,” he said, as he squeezed his index finger and thumb close together. “If I have to bend a little bit to give someone a safe place for the night, I’m going to do that, no matter what story you write.”

Did you live in a sober living home? What was your experience like? We want to hear about it.

Evading authorities

Sober living homes are one weapon in the broader fight against the heroin and opioid epidemic sweeping the nation.

A staggering 40% to 60% of people who are treated for substance abuse relapse, according to a 2014 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. However, studies show the probability of relapse is cut in half when an addict stays in a recovery house after treatment.

The houses are meant to provide residents with a support network of fellow recovering addicts, as well as mandate them to attend 12-step programs and obtain employment. By some estimates, there currently are tens of thousands of recovering addicts in these houses across New Jersey.

Sober living houses also can be profitable, generating a steady flow of cash for operators with little overhead. And because regulation of these facilities is often piecemeal, depending on the state and municipality, shady operators have been allowed to operate unchecked for years, according to experts.

The problem has been especially pronounced in Florida, where, according to the New York Times, a combination of low taxes, warm weather and a new generation of young addicts who gained access to their parents’ health insurance under the Affordable Care Act resulted in an explosion in the number of sober houses earlier this decade.

To address the issue in New Jersey, the Department of Community Affairs started issuing licenses for sober living houses on Jan. 16, 2018.

“The regulations are intended to ensure that such facilities are operated in a manner that adequately protects the safety of residents,” DCA spokeswoman Tammori Petty said in an email.

To date, 81 properties in New Jersey have received a Cooperative Sober Living Residence license.

Properties associated with Recovery Placement Services, however, are not among them, Petty said.

She said any facility operating as a sober living home without a license is subject to a maximum $5,000 fine. A fine has never been issued to Molin’s property, according to Petty. In 2016, before sober living licenses existed, the DCA investigated a property allegedly associated with Molin after the agency received an anonymous letter outlining several allegations of wrongdoing.

The DCA said it determined the property was in compliance with the agency’s regulations for a boarding home and that Molin was not affiliated with the facility — despite knowing that the property was owned by Recovery Placement Services.

The DCA sober living license allows 10 unrelated people to live in a recovery house. Six former residents say Molin maximized profits by packing clients in his homes, with as many as 40 people at one point living at the Norwood Avenue house. (The state says a building with three or more apartments cannot be converted into a sober living residence.)

Molin has evaded housing codes, seven former clients said, by having clients break down bunk beds and hide them ahead of scheduled code enforcement inspections by Long Branch housing officials.

NJ Advance Media made several attempts to meet with a Long Branch housing official. He initially agreed to meet, but then canceled after the media outlet presented him with several questions ahead of the interview about citations against Molin. He did not return multiple phone calls and an email to reschedule the meeting.

Molin denied ever instructing anyone to break down bunk beds, and insisted the property no longer uses bunk beds. He said he has 17 people living in the Norwood Avenue home. Molin did, however, concede to having more than that living in his home at certain times.

“I’ll do it again if it’s freezing cold, it’s 10 degrees and they have nowhere to sleep,” he said. “If it cost me an $85 fine, I’ll do it.”

‘I was a problem kid’

This isn’t the first time Molin has made news for dubious recovery practices.

Two decades ago, Molin, who grew up in River Edge, operated the Hackensack-based Reflections Recovery Center, an outpatient program that housed clients in unlicensed rooming homes.

In July 2002, The Record newspaper published a report that found Molin “consistently put patients’ lives at risk while sidestepping state oversight.” After the story was published, Bergen County officials cracked down on some rooming houses. The Hackensack facility was sold and Molin moved to Florida, The Record reported in a follow-up story.

In Florida, records show, Molin had multiple charges of drug possession from 2003 to 2006, when he committed his most serious offense: home invasion robbery with a firearm. Molin was convicted in June 2008 and sentenced to about one year in a state facility, records show.

By 2009, Molin was back in New Jersey — and back in handcuffs, records show. On Sept. 22, 2009, he was arrested and charged with several counts of burglary after he broke into multiple residences in Paramus, according to a criminal complaint. This time he was sentenced to four years in state prison, though he was out after three years.

Molin doesn’t shy away from his past, admitting he was once a “nightmare.”

“I was a problem kid,” he said. “I’ve been locked up 17 times, three state prisons, 13 rehabs. I’ve wandered around the country, getting in trouble everywhere I went.”

He said he turned his life around after going to boot camp in Mississippi, and that — with the exception of being “medically treated” after a car crash — he’s been clean for 15 years.

“I’m doing God’s work and I believe that,” he said. “I don’t abuse anybody.”

In 2012, records show, Molin started Recovery Placement Services approximately 60 miles south of Hackensack in Long Branch.

His credentials for running such an operation appear to be exaggerated. Molin is not a licensed drug and alcohol counselor in New Jersey. In an interview, he said he has a certificate from the Recovery Assistance Prevention Training, a private program that shuttered 15 years ago.

Molin said he went to “Harvard Medical School for an addiction course,” but he was never enrolled in the school and the certificate he displays on his office wall is for a two-day accredited course on addiction in 1999 that was open to everyone on a first come, first served basis, a university spokesperson said.

As for his properties, Molin says he has only ever run a multifamily house on Norwood Avenue, which records show was purchased by his mother, Harriet, for $500,000 in 2015. In March 2018, she received two summonses for not having a certificate of occupancy. The home currently has a CO listed in Harriet Molin’s name.

According to court records and internal documents obtained by NJ Advance Media, Molin has managed at least three other properties in Long Branch since 2018 — on Branchport, Rockwell and Lippincott avenues. However, former residents said he's currently only running the Norwood property.

Those properties are listed as being owned by LLCs, so it’s hard to draw a connection to Dean Molin.

Molin was fined for having no certificate of occupancy for a home on Vanderbilt Avenue in February 2018, though he said he never owned that property.

Still, Molin conceded he paid all fines issued to him and his mother.

An all-cash facility

Vito Castagna, 23, arrived at Recovery Placement Services in October 2017 after being referred by a friend from Staten Island.

The Brooklyn native said he paid a $750 initial payment to get into Recovery Placement Services, scraping together the money from savings and with help from his mom.

That payment included the first two weeks of rent, bedsheets and a towel, Castagna said. After that, he had to pay a weekly rent of $175, which is comparable to rents in other sober living houses in southern New Jersey.

While living at Molin’s house, though, Castagna relapsed after about six months, and Molin sent him to a rehab. When he returned after treatment, Molin requested he pay another $750 upfront, he said.

All told, Castagna said he paid $1,500 to Molin in less than a year in entry payments alone.

“I’m still recouping from that,” Castagna said in a recent interview.

Experts said most insurance companies don’t cover the cost of post-treatment sober living. So even if a resident has insurance, he or she has to pay cash to live at Recovery Placement Services.

Every former client NJ Advance Media spoke to had to pay $750 upfront. Weekly rent is $175, not including the cost to do laundry and to have an air-conditioning unit during the summer. (NJ Advance Media spoke to 11 former residents of Molin’s sober homes in Long Branch, but only three agreed to go on the record.)

It’s standard for recovery houses to request the first two weeks of rent upfront. But Molin tacks on an extra $400 to his entry payment, and that is not common, said David M. Sheridan, executive director of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences.

“Someone looking for (recovery) housing is coming out of treatment,” he said. “Those upfront charges just deter people.”

Molin said the additional costs are necessary to cover insurance costs and brand new linens.

He said he works with people who don’t have the money to pay the upfront costs, and that he also lets people fall behind on rent.

“In all reality, I would probably make more money if I just rented to families. Most of these people owe me money,” Molin said. “But that’s not what I’m here for. There’s probably $5,000 in back rents floating around throughout the house. That would probably be a fair number to stay.”

Three former clients also raised concerns to NJ Advance Media about living conditions at the Norwood Avenue property. Castagna said he lived in a half-finished basement that was filled with mist and mildew. Two other former residents also said they lived in the basement and said when they complained they were told they had to stay there until a bed became free upstairs.

“I was down there and four of us had to petition for a dehumidifier,” Castagna said. “It was just wet down there.”

Other aspects of Molin’s operation also run counter to national industry practices.

Andrew Weber, 27, of Metuchen, recalled tense house meetings held weekly where all residents gathered. This is where Molin encouraged housemates to confront each other about breaking house rules, Weber said.

“There were times people would yell at each other, almost get into fights,” he said. “Not everything is for a public forum.”

The use of confrontational methods in recovery, which dates to the 1960s, can be ineffective and harmful to what is already a vulnerable population, some research shows.

Molin then would assign punishments — known as “consequences” — to residents who broke house rules, according to former clients. Weber said he missed a house meeting one week because of a family emergency and Molin instructed him to clean all the fake plants the following day. Other people, he said, received much harsher penalties, such as doing landscaping for hours, painting houses or helping out with renovations in a new property.

Four former residents said they saw Molin force clients to scrub a bathroom with a toothbrush. One former resident said a housemate had her bed taken away and was forced to sleep on an air mattress in the kitchen.

Molin denied ever making someone scrub a bathroom with a toothbrush, forcing anyone to do labor or sleep on an inflatable bed in the kitchen.

“Really? You see anybody working out here. Come any day you want. I have a landscaper who does the landscaping,” he said.

Later in the interview, after Molin told a story of how a rehab center he went to forced him to rake 60 bags of leaves a day for days on end, he said, “If more rehabs were like that today, and it wasn’t so cushy — where you go get your nails done and get a massage once a week, some acupuncture. That s--- don’t f------ fix addiction.”

‘There needs to be oversight'

Legislators crafted two bills that would have created more oversight over sober living homes.

One bill (A3607), which has support from the National Alliance for Recovery Residences, would establish criminal background check requirements for operators and employees. The bill passed the Assembly but its companion bill in the Senate did not.

A separate bill (A3556) would prohibit sober living homes within a half mile of a school from accepting clients who have been convicted of a violent crime or a crime involving a minor. This bill was introduced but never went up for a vote.

Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle said oversight is necessary to protect the community.

“If you have overcrowding and residents in there, without any sort of checks and balances on both the house and residents, there could be potential problems, said Vainieri Huttle, D-Bergen. “There needs to be oversight from the proper agencies.”

Despite the negative comments from the majority of those interviewed by NJ Advance Media, Molin does have his champions.

Gabriel Reiss, 29, said he was living at Molin’s house when he was 23. He said Molin and Molin’s former partner were there for him every time he relapsed.

“Any time I f------d up, which was three times, each time (Molin) made sure I went back to a detox or a rehab and it was comfortable and under my conditions,” said Reiss, who now lives in Atlanta. “That place changed my entire life.”

Last fall, after learning that NJ Advance Media was working on a story about him, Molin extended an invitation to tour his property. On a day in November, I called him just before noon, told him I was a few blocks away and requested an interview. He said he couldn’t meet with me then, because he had meetings set up “with rehabs,” but asked if I could return in three hours.

The Norwood Avenue home, a renovated multifamily house built in 1907, is within walking distance of Monmouth University, about 2 miles from the Long Branch beach, in a neighborhood of similarly large homes. The property is sprawling, with four separate apartment units — three in a 3,160-square-foot house and a garage apartment.

When I returned later that afternoon with a photographer, the place was immaculate. Two house managers, a man and woman, escorted me around the house, where only a handful of clients were present. There are nine bedrooms, with women on the first floor and men on the second floor. (Molin and his wife live in a separate apartment attached to the back of the house.) Each floor has its own entrance. Every bed in the home was made; the food on the shelf perfectly aligned. In one bedroom, I saw an older man sitting at the end of his bed, thumbing through the pages of The Star-Ledger.

Later, Molin, who has dark brown hair and is broad-shouldered and burly, sat behind his desk, flanked by framed certifications and a flat-screen TV showing several different feeds from surveillance cameras around the property.

He remained even-tempered throughout the two-hour interview, answered every question I asked him. When I asked him about an accusation I had heard, he would explain to me how there are “haters” who talk bad about him.

“You’re going to hear haters hate,” he said. “That’s their job.”

His forthcomingness, however, had its limits. I requested to see the basement and attic during my interview with Molin.

He said no.

“I’m telling you, no one lives in the basement,” he said, as he sat back in his swivel chair, his voice growing more defiant.

Four more times during our interview, I asked to see the basement. Each time he refused.

He said, “You’re not the fire department or the state. Do I want to let you in my basement? Not really, but if I had to prove a point I could.”

UPDATE: Officials crack down on unlicensed sober living home hours after NJ.com report.

Vinessa Erminio contributed research to this report.

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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