Two Residents Settle Into Shorewood Sober House

After the quiet coming of the Next Step sober-living house from neighbors and village officials this summer, the first two tenants have moved into the sober-living house and said everything is going smoothly.

"Things are going real good," Don Lemons, the first resident to move in, said. "We like the neighbors and the neighbors like us."

Lemons moved in about a month ago, he said, and the second resident moved in two weeks ago. At 4100 N. Woodburn St., the house is meant to be place where recovering addicts who have already completed treatment programs can live in a supportive environment to sustain their sobriety.

Owners Don Myles and Christine Litwin planned to eventually accept six residents to live in the house, with three in each unit of the side-by-side duplex, if everything goes well with the first residents.

Myles and Litwin also , which is not yet in place. Lemons said they have discussed with the residents the possibility of a house manager, and could be planning to implement one. Myles and Litwin did not respond to phone calls from Patch.

"The community is making more of a fuss than they should," Lemons said, referring to the media. "We're just regular people trying to get by. We all got jobs, we all pay our rent. We wake up, we go to work, we make supper just like everyone else. We're not trying to cause any problems."

He said so far neighbors have been welcoming.

"We talk to them, we pet their dogs when they walk by, we just bought a couple chairs from a rummage sale nearby," Lemons said. "We're just having a smile on our face and doing what we do."

When village officials first found out about plans for the house by reading about it in a ShorewoodNOW article, they launched an investigation into whether it was legal for Myles and Litwin to open the house without permission from the village.

After gathering information from Myles and Litwin and seeking counsel from Village Attorney Ray Pollen, village officials found Myles and Litwin had done nothing wrong, according to Village Manager Chris Swartz.

Because Myles and Litwin are not operating the house as a business or a non-profit, they are essentially just landlords in the eyes of the law, requiring no special permits. But their identity as a sober-living house grants them the privilege of accepting or rejecting tenants based on things like gender (they accept men only), criminal history, and employment, Swartz said.

"The attorney has made a decision that it's just like having three college students there [in each unit], from a legal standpoint," Swartz said. "There's nothing they need from the state or from us. They have a right to be there."